ACT 6: BIOHAZARD World of the Undead File 2
by noctorro
Summary: Expansion story to ACT 5: Biohazard World of the Undead, Craig Crankurt enters Raccoon City to make a surprise visit to his little brother Kenny during the TVirus outbreak. More information in the introduction chapter.
1. Introduction: File 2

**ACT 5 - Biohazard: World of the Undead – File 2**

As mentioned in the summary, this story is a lot like Resident Evil: Outbreak File 2 in the sense that it is not a sequel to Act 5 – Biohazard: World of the Undead, but more of an expansion of the same story. When I had ended the first story, I announced that there was no sequel planned for it – but I didn't say that there wasn't going to be a secondary, expansion story.

This story revolves around the character of Craig Crankurt, better known as Cranky (he was introduced in my Street Fighter fanfictions). He is the best friend/older brother of Kenny, the main character in the first story. During the time the T Virus outbreak in Raccoon starts to manifest itself, Cranky arrives in Raccoon City to pay Kenny a surprise visit. But the pleasantries are cut short as hordes of zombies and other Umbrella creations overrun the entire city. These are the events that construct Cranky's story in the world of the undead.

Much like Kenny's story followed the events of the Resident Evil series, this story will follow the events of Resident Evil: Outbreak. Cranky's adventure will not interfere with the game itself, but instead is intended to compliment the published game.

I hope you will enjoy reading this story as much as I will be while writing it.

Sincerely,

Noctorro


	2. Chapter 1: Surprise Visit

Cranky sucked in the air into his lungs, making sure to fill them with sufficient oxygen as he sat in his seat, the large cushions almost swallowing up his body. The roaring of the jet's engines filled his ears as they plowed him through the sky. The air inside the plane didn't feel particularly natural – more … recycled. It circulated between people's nostrils and the ventilation system so many times he could almost swear he was tasting the insides of his fellow passenger's lungs by the mere act of breathing. His head throbbed, like there was some kind of little man inside the depths of his thick skull trying to beat his way out through the bone. Cranky pressed his fingers against his eyes and temples, hoping to lessen the pain, but it only made the throbbing worse.

"This is the last time I fly Air America," he promised himself quietly.

He immediately clamped down on his own lips when a rather attractive looking stewardess approached him. Her uniform, consisting of a white dress shirt with a knee length black skirt, covered by a navy blue apron seemed a few sizes too small for her, enhancing her more feminine qualities. "Would you like some coffee or tea, sir?" she asked politely, leaning her head towards him as she pronounced the last syllable. Her dark blue eyes seemed to sparkle at that moment at the angle. Her pink, glossy lips sparkled as they curved slightly upward into a gentle, friendly smile.

"Actually," he said, reaching into his pant pocket, "I was wondering if I could buy one of those duty free items from the catalogue here."

"Oh sure," the stewardess replied, the smile never leaving her lips. "Which item did you want?"

Cranky reached into the pocket sewn into the rear of the seat in front of him and pulled a large catalogue, thick with pages. He flipped it open and turned a few pages, pointing to an item on a seemingly random page. "I want this one," he said, leaning over towards where the stewardess stood, leaning his head just so that he could see the bare tip of her cleavage.

"Good choice," she said. "This iron man watch is the perfect gift for anyone sporty. Who's it for?"

"This guy," Cranky replied, opening his wallet to take out a hundred dollar bill. He fumbled through the many flaps of the worn leather wallet until he came to a transparent flap that displayed what looked like a passport picture of a six year old child.

"Isn't he cute?" the waitress said, taking note of the child's jet black hair, round face and narrow eyes. "Who is he to you?"

"My little brother," Cranky replied proudly.

The stewardess cocked an eyebrow at him. Up to that point, she had been captivated by this young man that was purchasing a watch from her. Because he was seated, it was hard to say for sure but she was almost certain that he stood a few inches above her. His hair, cut close to his head was fiery red, complimenting his emerald green eyes. He wore a black T-shirt that hugged his body just enough to suggest a hard built torso underneath, but not to the point where it was tight fitting. He seemed reserved – judging by the brief exchange they shared thus far – and well mannered. That fascination quickly gave way to confusion, however, after hearing what he'd just said.

"Your kid brother is … Japanese?" she asked curiously.

"No, Chinese," Cranky replied, "but we both lived in Japan for pretty much all our lives."

"I'm sorry," she said, laughing nervously. "I don't get the relation."

"He was orphaned," Cranky explained, "right around the time this photo was taken. He ran away from the authorities who were trying to find him and I took care of him."

The stewardess could feel her heart melt. He really was a gentleman, taking care of such a young boy. "So how old is your little brother now?"

"Fifteen," was the reply, a sudden change of tone in Cranky's voice. "He's living in Raccoon City and isn't expecting me to show up. This is kind of a surprise visit."

"Well that's going to be exciting. Anyway, I'll go get you your watch and your change, mister …"

"Crankurt," he replied, "Craig Crankurt. But you can just call me Cranky." The stewardess smiled as she walked away, Cranky winking at her as she went. He kicked his legs out, extending them underneath the seat in front of him and rested his hands behind his head. His surprise visit to his adopted little brother had barely begun and he'd already met a gorgeous blond. This trip was going to be great, he had the feeling. "You're gonna fucking flip when I show up, Kenny."

**XXXXX**

****

"Thank you," a blonde haired girl said, placing the tab on the wooden barrel that served as a table. The customer, a high strung, tense woman paid her no heed, busily typing away at her laptop. The girl, Cindy Lennox, shrugged and continued about her business, heading towards the back of the bar, J's Bar, picking up a few empty drink glasses on her way behind the counter. She placed them in the sink and turned the tap on, being sure to soak them all in the hot water that poured from the faucet.

Beside her, a young man with a crop of short brown hair wiped his hands with a towel. "Nice lady, huh?" he said sarcastically, turning to face Cindy.

"Will …" she replied, wiping her hands off on her dark gray skirt. She gently took hold of the young man's red tie and pulled it out from behind his brown vest, straightening it skillfully. "You look like a slob." She tucked the tie back in and adjusted the collar of his dress shirt. "If you keep on looking like this while working, you know the boss is gonna throw a fit."

Will shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The regulars don't care what I look like. And they're the ones bringing in most of our income anyway, right? All they care about is how we serve them. And to be frank, Cindy, we're the best service team the boss has ever had."

"I guess," she said, sighing.

"What's the problem?" Will asked, holding her by the shoulders.

"Nothing," Cindy replied. "It's just that I don't want to have to rely on the service industry for my income. It's not that I want to move on or anything but … I just want to have something to fall back on."

"Well how are your medicinal classes at the university going?"

"Not too bad. I'm learning how to make herb cocktails."

Will snickered. "Sounds like some kind of marijuana dooby."

Cindy slapped his lightly on the shoulder. "It's actually for medicinal purposes – some real advanced stuff. Word's going around that this is the kind of stuff even the S.T.A.R.S. members practice on the field, when they are out of medicine. The herbs that grow around the Raccoon City area have exceptional healing abilities."

"Yo, waitress!" a large, gruff man yelled from across the bar, raising his hand. "How about some service over here, huh?" Will rolled his eyes in response.

"Don't worry about it," Cindy said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have been distracted." She walked elegantly over to where the man sat, just at another table-like barrel. Cindy could hear Will cursing under his breath at the audacity of the customer. But it was alright. Cindy was experienced in the service industry. And so was Will, so he should be used to this kind of customer. Yet for him to take such offense to a customer treating her with disrespect so personally, Cindy knew something was up with him. She'd known it for a long time, actually. Will fancied her.

"Here's your bill, Mr. Cavanaugh," Cindy said cheerfully, placing the tab down onto the barrel. The man acknowledged her presence with a slight grunt and waved her off. She turned around and headed back for the bar when the door chime suddenly sounded. Cindy's path changed course from the bar to the entrance, where the most interesting young man stood, looking completely lost.

"Table for one?" Cindy asked, her usual approach to customers.

The man shook his head. "I'm just looking for directions," he replied, "but thanks anyway. I was wondering if you could give me directions to Augustine Street from here. I've got a friend that lives at the junction of Augustine and Main."

"That's uptown Raccoon City," Cindy said, motioning outside the door. "You gonna wanna turn right after leaving the bar and walk about seven blocks north until you reach Augstine. You're on Main Street right now so there's no need to turn anywhere."

The man let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much for your help. You have no idea how much trouble you've saved me."

"Is this your first time in Raccoon City?" Cindy asked.

"Yeah, I just arrived about an hour ago from the airport."

"Well you picked a perfect time to come," she said with a touch of sarcasm. "Tourism into the city has dwindled within the last few months."

The man turned his head curiously. "Why is that?"

"Well I feel a little silly saying this to someone who's just arrived in town. But …"

"But …"

"Well," Cindy said, rubbing the back of her head nervously, "there've been these bizarre rumors about cannibal murders occurring in the outskirts of town. The media's taken a fairy tale and given it too much attention and it seems everyone is falling for it. So I'm just surprised you haven't heard them either."

"I'm just visiting my friend for a few days," the man said shrugging. "I don't care about the local legends and folklore, I just wanna see my kid brother. Thank you again … Cindy." Her name was quite obvious on the tag that she wore. "I hope to be seeing a lot of you while I'm in town." He extended a hand. "Call me Cranky."

**XXXXX**

Cranky headed north according to the waitresses directions. She was a pretty girl, in that plain, simple sort of way. He found her work uniform a little corny, though, a white shirt with sky blue vertical stripes. Her blonde hair hand hung messily around her face in loose wisps, but she had a pleasant aura about her. He knew she would be the kind of waitress he'd tip well, especially now since she'd helped him find his way around the city.

He mentally kicked himself for not staying in touch with his little brother. Cranky only knew that Kenny was in town through word of mouth. He'd gotten his address from a friend of Kenny's back in Osaka and jumped on the first plane out of Japan as soon as he'd gathered enough money.

But there was something nagging at him from the back of his mind. He thought he felt a little strange coming into the city. Something didn't feel quite right about it. There was a staggering number of drunk people on the streets, moaning as they shuffled along on numb feet. In a city like Osaka, where he had lived his whole life, being drunk in public was frowned upon, therefore people avoided public embarrassment at all cost. But it seemed that residents in Raccoon City had a different set of values.

The air around here was a little smelly too. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but if Cranky were asked to describe it, the best way he could describe the odor would be that of rotting flesh. It was a pretty harsh description, he realized, but there was only a hint of decay. He knew almost immediately that he couldn't live in a place like this, then wondered how Kenny managed to.

Somewhere in the distance, gunshots were fired, and a woman screamed. Cranky's eyes scanned the streets, hoping to see someone around that could help. But there were no police officers, not even civilians. Come to think of it, he'd hardly seen any people beside the strange drunks since coming into the city. Now something really didn't feel right at all.

Deciding that there was nobody to help him, Cranky dashed ahead, pinpointing the sound of the gunshot. He rounded a random alley, where he could best pinpoint the source of the sound and nearly died from shock from the sight that fell before his eyes.

There was the body of a woman lodged between a pair of large garbage dumpsters. From his angle Cranky could only see her feet poking out from between the dumpsters and … God, the smell. It was horrible. The only thing worse was the sound, the wet crunching sound of breaking bones. Cranky felt the color in his face drain. Was something _eating_ the woman? She was not moving, but there was a pool of crimson beneath her body and it was growing pretty large. Then he noticed another set of legs, this one was positioned over the body, on its knees. The torso connected to the legs was also hidden by the dumpsters but it didn't take Cranky long to figure out who they belonged to – it was one of the drunkards.

Hold on, what was Cindy the waitress saying about cannibal murders? The girl clearly didn't believe a word of these "rumors" but here they were happening so close to her work place and yet she still didn't believe. Cranky had converted right away. Cranky hadn't an ounce of faith in his body, relying solely on his eyes to tell him what was going on. And this time, they were telling him that people in Raccoon City ate other people. What kind of sick cult ran rampant throughout the city? It was so obvious something was wrong with the place, how come the authorities weren't doing anything about this?

As if some higher being answered his question, more gunshots were heard and the body of the drunkard now lay motionless on top of the woman's corpse. Standing on the other side of the bodies, deeper in the alley stood a police man in a light blue shirt and navy blue pants. Gray hair poked out from underneath his hat. The officer kept his eyes and handgun trained on the bodies making sure that the cannibal was dead.

"Are you alright, man?" the officer asked Cranky, who was still too stunned to comprehend what he just saw.

"I … I think …" was all he could manage to choke out.

"We've got no time to chat," the officer said, raising his gun again, this time at Cranky.

He immediately shot up his hands. "Hold on, what's going on here?!" The officer fired, yet much to his surprise, Cranky didn't feel anything except the bullet breaking the air just beside his ear. Something moaned in pain from behind him. Cranky spun around to get a look at what could've made that noise and realized it was another one of those cannibal drunkards with a fresh wound in the center of its forehead. He turned back to face the cop. "Hold on, man, you can't just go around shooting people like that."

"The police have already reached the conclusion that these things aren't people," the officer replied calmly.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Cranky declared, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Just because they go around eating other people in broad daylight …" he stopped himself upon realizing how strange he must've sounded trying to justify what they were doing. After all, the policeman had just saved his life – potentially.

"There's more of them," the cop said, pointing behind Cranky. And he was right. There was now a small group of them, about six Cranky counted, heading towards them in the same manner – with arms outstretched and pupiless eyes gazing at them, moaning in different pitches.

"We can head back the way I came," Cranky suggested to the officer. "I didn't see any of these freaks on my way up here."

"That won't do us any good," the cop said as he motioned to a parked patrol unit. "Get in the car. We've got to get out of here."

As the car sped away into the fading light of day, Officer Raymond, as Cranky had learned his name shortly thereafter, made multiple calls for backup. At Cranky's suggestion, Officer Raymond had parked his car just in front of J's Bar, the same bar Cranky was at just under an hour ago for the sake of rescuing whatever civilians were inside, including the waitress, he hoped. As Cranky stepped out of the patrol unit, he took a deep breath of the city's air and once again confirmed the stench of death that lingered. He looked northward at the direction Cindy had told him to go earlier, the same direction that Kenny was situated.

"Please be safe, kiddo," Cranky prayed quietly under his breath.


	3. Chapter 2: The Hordes

**Bianca:** I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the story so far. I'm starting at a pretty general base, but it'll go into a lot more detail soon enough. Try and remember what happened in the other story because its gonna fit with this one like a jigsaw puzzle.

**Shadow Megaman: **Yeah, this story isn't just another part of the previous one – it will have the same significance, only on Cranky's character and as mentioned above, will interlock pretty well with the first story.

**ColdandShock3: **I'm not angry at all with how you presented Kenny in your story. Having the same character being looked at from a different light is very interesting. And the fact that the character in question belongs to me, it makes it even more so. I did the same for Lisa Hartley and Jack Carpenter, from HHoD's story.

Cindy first noticed something was wrong when the door opened. She couldn't understand why a chill ran up her spine at that exact moment. The chime was no different that it was when other customers had entered the bar that way, but yet it was there – and very strong. Something at the back of her mind told her to turn around and take a good look at the customer that just entered. She did so.

Apparently, Will had also gotten the same impression that she did for he was already halfway to the door from the bar. "Will …" Cindy called out, but bit her lip, unsure of why she wanted him to stay away from the strange denim-clad man standing in the doorway. He had long brown hair reaching down to his chin, long enough that it obscured his face. He wore a denim jacket with matching jeans, both stained with a variety of colors that it was hard to tell where they came from. And judging from the smell that emanated from the man, Cindy didn't want to find out either.

"What a strange customer …" Will said as he approached the man.

"Will, get away from him." That was what Cindy would've said if she had found the courage to talk. But she could only stay rooted to where she stood. But it seemed that Will had already caught on. He reared back in horror to get some distance between him and the customer, but the man lunged forward and seized the younger bartender by the shoulders. He drove his face into Will's shoulder, producing a skin tearing, bone crunching noise as will screamed in pain.

"No!" Cindy cried running to his aid. By this time, the store's other patrons had already stood up from their seats, their attention focused at the door where Will now stood with his hand pressed against his shoulder. With his free arm, he shoved the man back outside the bar and slammed the door shut, locking it immediately. After the click of the lock was heard, he sank to the ground in a heap of pain, instead of heading back deeper into the bar.

That was when everyone noticed the screams coming from outside. The rude, blonde haired woman that Cindy helped earlier was up on her feet, pressing her face against the window, trying to get a good looking through the growing darkness. But the waitress wasn't paying attention to her. She was focused on her coworker, Will, leaning against the door with his hand pressed to his shoulder, his face a twisted mask of pain.

"I'm going to put a bandage on that," she said, tearing a strip from the bottom of her gray skirt.

"There's someone outside!" the rude woman yelled, pointing through the window. "He looks like he needs help. We've gotta open the door and let him in!"

"And risk letting those creatures in?" the gruff man, Mr. Cavanaugh, continued. "I don't think so."

The woman turned around and gave him a look of bewilderment. "Are you suggesting we _let_ people die out there?!"

"If helping them poses a threat to our own safety, then yes."

"Of all the people to be stuck with …"

"Hey, stop it!" Cindy yelled at the two patrons – the first time she'd ever raised her voice at her customers. "This isn't the time to be arguing with each other. Something weird is happening out there and …"

"Yeah, I'll tell you what's happening …" the woman said. "Those cannibal murders I've been reporting about are occurring closer and closer to the center of the city!"

"_You_ wrote those articles in the newspaper?" Cindy asked, pointing a shaky finger. "You're … Alyssa Ashcroft?"

"The one and only," Alyssa replied, a smug smile crossing her face.

"Except that I heard she stole the scoop from a fellow named Ben Bertolucci …" one of the other patrons said, shattering Alyssa's aura of confidence. This one was a large, rotund man of African descent and a deep voice. His bald head shone even under the dim lighting of the bar. The only hair on his face was present in a thin goatee around his upper lip and chin.

"Mr. Wilkins," Cindy said, her face lighting up.

"Please," he replied, putting his hand up, "Mark will do just fine."

"Okay, Mark, you have a gun, right?"

"Well … yeah," he said, "but why do you think we need a gun?"

"Are you crazy?" Alyssa interrupted. "Have you seen exactly what's going on outside? How else are we supposed to protect ourselves? You're our only hope!"

"Well … I …" Mark was about to deny the necessity for a firearm. But as Alyssa motioned outside, he realized just how much trouble they were in. Strange men – at least that's what they looked like – were shuffling along the streets of the city, moaning with arms outstretched wherever they walked. Handfuls of civilians were being cornered by the things, knocked down and bitten, screaming all the way. And the customer that had previously entered the bar was just one of these strange men.

"They're goddamn zombies straight out of a horror movie!" Alyssa cried, her finger still pointing to the window.

"Yeah, but is one gun going to be enough to protect all of us?" Alyssa asked, glancing quickly around the room. She estimated between eight to ten other people besides herself. But her mind had more important things to worry about that the people present in the room with her – like how to get the hell out of the building without ending up like the people on the street.

"I can back Mr. Wilkins up," a proud, youthful voice boomed. A young police officer with long brown hair and really bad razor stubble stepped into place beside Mark, brandishing a Colt .45 handgun. "This baby can handle anything."

"Thanks for the offer son," Mark said, extending his hand to the officer, who returned the gesture. "What's your name?"

"Kevin Ryman," was the reply. "I'm surprised you don't know who I am by now."

"He's a regular at the bar, Mark," Cindy said patting Kevin's shoulder. "He's a very good sharpshooter." She then turned her attention to Kevin. "And I hope you can help us out in this tight situation."

"Don't worry about me," he said, training his weapon at the front door. "You just use those potent herbs of yours to heal any injuries we may sustain. Mark and I will take care of anything that tries to lay a finger on us."

"Where can we escape to?" Alyssa cried out desperately.

"That door, over there!" Cindy replied, pointing urgently to the locked door at the back of the bar, just beside the counter. "But … I've forgotten where I left the key!"

"Don't worry about it," Alyssa said, "I'll pick the lock."

"Are you sure you know how to …"

"Just shut up and _heal_!"

**XXXXX**

Cranky's first instinct was to hold his ears close with his palms and crouch down to the earth, sitting there in complete silence, hoping that the darkness and these strange people would disappear soon. But the loud gunshots that rang through the air was a constant reminder that this nightmare was all to real. Within the first few hours of entering Raccoon City, he had already witnessed a handful of deaths with these strange men walking all around, trying to get at him – and for what, he didn't know.

Just a few feet away, using the police patrol car as a shield, Officer Raymond was firing his handgun at the oncoming crowd of the strange, smelly men. He didn't want to use the word, but the more Cranky thought about it, the more they resembled the undead. They behaved on one instinct only – hunger. They traveled in packs, slow as hell, and incredibly dumb. But they displayed vicious strength and ferocity, taking down anything living and breathing in their path, ripping them apart with their bare teeth. They were nothing more than zombies.

"How good are you with a gun?!" Officer Raymond asked suddenly, turning around to face him thus, taking his view off the zombies.

Cranky didn't want to answer that question. He'd been a pickpocket during his earlier years on the streets. He stole money and food from unsuspecting people, but he never actually held a gun, much less pointing it at somebody before.

"Not too bad."

"Good," Officer Raymond said, throwing him a spare handgun he unclipped from his belt. Cranky caught the hunk of metal with relative ease, though grunting a little at the surprising weight of it. "Is your aim any good?"

"You'll find out soon enough," Cranky said, taking aim at the closest zombie. His hands were damp with cold sweat, trembling like a leaf in the wind. But his ego was too big to succumb to his inabilities. After all, how hard could shooting be? You just aimed at where you wanted to shoot, then pull the trigger. There was nothing to it at all! "Holy shit, what was that?!" he cried, feeling the recoil shoot painfully through his body. The bullet hit a male zombie in the chest, splattering his bone and bits of flesh in an outward spray behind its body.

Officer Raymond gave him a strange look. "Are you sure you know how to …"

"Yes!" Cranky interrupted, quickly taking aim at the next creature that stood by. His hands weren't as shaky this time. Cranky never hesitated to try new things and a life on the streets had taught him to learn new skills fast. And picking up the whole shooting and aiming deal wasn't one of the harder things he'd learned to do. He pulled the trigger again, this time more prepared for the recoil, and smiled as he saw the head of an older male zombie blow up in a spray of blood, bone, and gray matter. It was just like the video games, just like the movies. This was no different – just aim for their heads and there was no way they would get the chance to come close enough to bite and spread their sickness.

One thing bothered Cranky though. How was it that these zombies came to be? Of course, they were notorious in the movies for biting other people and turning them into one of their own. But how did the first one come into existence in the first place? There had to be some kind of reasonable explanation – not including the kind that involved some kind of magic sorcerer trying to take over the world by resurrecting an army of the undead.

Cranky shot a look into the bar and noticed a blonde woman looking at him through the window. She had her face pressed against the glass, eyes squinting to see outside. Her ignorance could cost the woman her life. Was the deaf to the gunshots? Could she not realize that there was a life and death struggle happening outside? Why did she insist on staying by the windows?

"Come on, get behind the car!" Officer Raymond ordered. At first, Cranky thought Raymond was yelling at him, but then he noticed a flock of forms running towards the police car. They were _running_! They were normal people trying to escape the zombies!

"Help us!" one of them yelled. The following screams were drowned out by the shooting of guns.

"Shoot, Cranky!" Raymond ordered. "We've gotta take them out before they can get too close!"

"What about all these people?" Cranky asked. "What are we gonna do with them?!"

"Protect them for now!" The vibrations running through Cranky's arms and his body were numbing. The blasts from the guns created a high pitched ringing sensation in his ears, yet he continued shooting. When was the gun out to run out of … _click._

"Throw me a magazine!" Cranky ordered in a more authoritative tone than he'd intended. But that didn't offend Officer Raymond at all as he swiftly pulled out an extra clip from his belt and tossed it at Cranky with one fluid motion. Cranky caught the flying clip out of midair with one hand, emptying empty shells from his handgun with the other, slamming the full clip into his now empty gun.

More and more people were running in his direction – more survivors! Cranky's heart leapt into his throat at the comforting sight. Not everyone in this city was a zombie. Maybe they had a chance of escaping after all.

Wait. What did he mean by "after all?" Was Cranky's subconscience telling him they weren't getting out of there? Was his mind making itself up before he had anything to say to it? Cranky didn't want to think pessimistically, especially in a situation like this. But his pessimism was almost natural, though one would never guess by meeting him.

He continued pumping bullets into the zombies that approached and they fell one by one, after absorbing so many. But he knew that Raymond and himself alone wouldn't be enough to hold off the approaching undead. They could stand here all night and shoot and never get anywhere out of the city.

Just then, a secondary patrol unit pulled up, alarms whirring, cutting sharp through the death-filled air. Its lights cast the surrounding area in alternating shades of red and blue. "Thank goodness!" Officer Raymond cried, slapping a hand on the side of his patrol car where he crouched, "backup is here."

Another officer, dressed in the same attire as Raymond – a blue button up T-shirt displaying various badges on his arms and black beret-style hat sitting on his head – jumped out of the newly arrived vehicle and drew his gun immediately. "Raymond, are you guys alright?!"

"I've got some help," he replied, cocking his head toward Cranky's direction. "But we're not enough to hold these things off! It's a good thing you did, Elliot."

"We can't continue to stay here and shoot," Cranky said. "We'll be out of bullets before we know it and those things will be on top of us." He wasn't get ready to use the word 'zombie' around other people yet, though he was sure that's what they called those things, since even after being in the city for a few hours, Cranky himself came to that conclusion. "We need to evacuate the area!" Where the hell was Cranky getting the nerve to order these police officers around? Maybe it was the fact that he'd always been the one with initiative. He wasn't the type to sit down and let someone order him around. Yet, he didn't give authority to others when it was due. That was his strength and his weakness. But the cops didn't seem to have a problem with it.

Officer Elliot threw open his car door and fumbled around inside while Raymond and Cranky continued shooting. Before long, he came out of the vehicle with a large megaphone in hand. Turning it on with an ear piercing shriek, he spoke into the mouth piece.

"This is the Raccoon City police department."

The call to evacuate was short and sweet, giving whoever was left alive approximately two three minutes to arrive at the pickup point. Cranky thought it to be a little short. If the disaster present in this part of town was widespread, there were bound to be injured people. And if they were injured, there was no way in hell they were going to make it within the three minute time frame. Then he tried looking at the situation from the officer's point of view. Nobody knew how many zombies were crawling around the streets. The roads were littered with road blocks and hastily constructed barricades, and only now did he realize what they were for. Upon entering the city, he thought the entire city was having some kind of a city-wide rave or something, so the police had erected the barriers to avoid letting a the riot spread too quickly, should one even form in the first place. He was right about the first part – the fact that they had been built by the police. But his guess as to why had been completely wrong. In fact, a riot at this point in time seemed like a cakewalk compared to the zombies that were shuffling around on the street. The hoodlums that made up the riot were rowdy but mostly harmless. Cranky knew that from his own experience. They didn't eat people alive. Those barricades were to keep the zombies at bay.

"Get in the car van!" Cranky could hear someone ordering from behind him, but he paid the man no attention. "I said, get into the goddamn van!" But Cranky continued shooting, blissfully unaware that the one being ordered around was _him._

"I think he's talking to you," Raymond said, motioning his a cock of his neck behind him.

"You're evacuating the civilians in those?" Cranky asked, looking at the beat up police wagon.

"It's all we've got available right now. Besides, the reinforced bars should do a good job protecting people from the zombies. Now get out of here."

"What?!" Cranky cried, looking appalled. Do you really think you can take on all these zombies by yourself?"

"I've got a shotgun waiting in the vehicle," Raymond explained. I'm well armed so don't worry about me. You need to haul your ass to safety, now get going!"

Cranky hesitantly left Raymond, tucking his gun into his belt buckle. 'Take care of yourself," he said.

Raymond shot him a smirk. "I'm a cop. Don't worry about me and make sure you make it out of here alive." Cranky made his way over to a dark blue police wagon, parked with its rear facing him. The doors were open, another officer standing inside, motioning for him to come in.

"If we leave now, what'll happen when other civilians make it over here?"

"There's another wagon on its way right now," the cop explained. "Just stop thinking too much and get in here!" Cranky obeyed, much to his surprise, not because he was ordered to, but because he knew that staying where he was meant suicide. He climbed into the wagon and found a spot for himself directly behind the driver seat, on a bench that stretched the side wall of the wagon.

Cranky shuddered as he took in his new surroundings. The last time he was in one of these, it had been under different circumstances. The bars weren't meant to protect him then. They were meant to keep him away from the general public, after having been caught by the authorities for pick pocketing on the streets of Osaka when he was only twelve years old. That was the first time he'd ever been arrested. He always thought of himself as a great thief … that is, until he decided to pickpocket a police officer who was an ex-criminal.

That being his first time, he was scared – practically shitting himself as the van took him into custody at the police station. But he had only spent the night there. The next day, when the Japanese authorities tried to get some social help for the gaijin child, he made a hasty escape. Being quicker and more nimble than any of those old farts, he was able to outrun his pursuers. Cranky swore to himself that day that he would never get arrested again. The only reason he got caught the first time was because the officer he pick pocketed was bigger and stronger than he was.

So from the day of his escape, Cranky began hitting the weights. There was an underground gym on the outskirts of the city. He went every day without final, working specific body parts every day of the week. The running and hiding he did everyday from thievery had built up his stamina pretty well. All he needed to focus on now was his strength.

Four years later, by the time he was sixteen, Cranky had changed from a small child with the build of a beanpole to a young man with respectable size and definition to his upper body and legs. He didn't like taking shit from anybody and he didn't have to. And that made stealing from people a lot easier. He no longer had to sneak up to his victims and snatch their bags or wallets then run away like the wind. Now he was big enough to intimidate them, bathing their quivering forms in his giant shadow. It wasn't so much that he was huge. Standing at about 5'10 back then, he was around the regular size for a boy his age. It was more attributed to the fact that physically, Asians, mainly the Japanese, were small sized people. And Cranky used that fact to his advantage. Another aspect he had on his side was the fact that he was a foreigner, someone who looked different – so different that his exotic appearance when mixed with his aggressive demeanor would have more of an effect on his victims that if he'd been of Oriental descent. His hair was a flaming, natural red. His eyes were a deep, emerald green, the color combination hinting at Irish ancestry. As a result, he was always the better thief than Kenny had ever been.

Kenny was of Chinese ancestry. Sure, he was foreign to the Japanese too, but he didn't look much different than they did. His was similar in size and build to them, and would receive much retaliation – verbally and physically should he try to so much as steal a woman's coin purse.

Cranky regretted every bringing Kenny into the street scene. During Cranky's sixteenth year, he was out drinking with his buddies on that fateful night nine years ago, he spotted Kenny, then a small six year old child walking out of a house all by himself. The child headed down the pathway leading to the gate, and eventually, the sidewalk. He seemed dazed. Deciding to see what was going on, Cranky decided to approach the boy and see what was going on. It wasn't until he'd gotten closer until he saw Kenny's tear streaked face that he realized the younger boy had been crying, having been through something traumatic. And when Cranky got even closer, he realized that those dark patches all over the boy's clothes weren't shadows – they were patches of blood! Just at the moment that Cranky approached him, the house that Kenny walked out erupted into a giant explosion, sending debris flying everywhere. The force of the expanding heat knocked both him and Kenny down onto the ground, knocking them both unconscious.

From the moment that the both of them had regained consciousness, Kenny remained glued to Cranky like glue. No matter how much the older boy tried to get rid of his little follower, Kenny would stick by his side, as if he'd been welded to Cranky's side. He never remembered the events of the night they met, though Cranky remembered fully well. Deciding not to bring up any bad memories, Cranky decided to never bring up the topic.

**XXXXX**

Cranky awoke from his slumber slowly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. At first, he could only see black spots against a backdrop of midnight blue. But his eyes gradually came into focus and he could make out the shapes of the bench in front of him from the even darker shadows it cast. He was still in the police vehicle. Great. Cranky had spent the first night of his surprise visit in the back of a police van. Where was the officer who was driving?

He took a quick look through the bars separating the passengers in the back from the driver and gasped. The driver's throat had been torn out. Blood had been splattered all over his face. Judging from the level of coagulation of the blood, the driver must've been killed over an hour ago. The droplets were not red, but a deep reddish brow, almost black – it was hard to tell in the night. What had killed him? And why hadn't the attacked woken him up? Well … Cranky didn't really get much sleep on the plane.

Then Cranky noticed the smashed windshield of the van and the deep dents on the hood. Something large had fallen on the hood and smashed through the windshield. The hole it produced was directly in front of where the driver sat.

Suddenly, Cranky felt his stomach turn, as he struggled to hold its contents in. What in the world was that hellish stench? It couldn't have been the corpse. The man was still alive minutes ago! Wait … how long had he been asleep? What time was it?! The smell was followed by the soft moaning of something inhuman coming from outside the van.

Realizing he had no gun, Cranky slowed his breathing and kept very still. He closed his eyes and willed the thing to go away, willed himself to wake up from this nightmare … for the second time that night. But the smell didn't leave, and the footsteps continued to make their god awful shuffling noise. But it wasn't until the rotting fists of the undead beast outside began beating on the locked back door of the wagon that Cranky's heartbeat increased in rate.


	4. Chapter 3: Car Crash

**Vammy: **So glad to hear from you! I must apologize again for my lack of contact just cause I've been so busy during the Christmas season. You've pretty much heard everything already. But you're right, your fic takes place after this one but before Act 6. That's because my first RE fic (Kenny's story) extends to after Raccoon City's demise by three months (that would be the RE: Code Veronica time frame), but this one will not. This story will end as soon as Raccoon City is destroyed – which gives Cranky roughly three months to fool around with Juli and Cammy, as will be depicted in your story, BEFORE Kenny returns to Osaka and meets up with them. whew Was that confusing enough?

**E-Z B: **That being the case, I hope you enjoy reading this story. I'm attempting to cross over some elements from the first story, this chapter being the first of them. Here's hoping it works.

**XXXXX**

The scratching and pounding on the back door of the police wagon never stopped. The undead never seemed to give up on their prey. Cranky forced away his instinct to panic – to panic would mean losing total control, and he couldn't afford to lose it if he wanted to survive. He chewed on his lower lip and took note of the cold sweat on his forehead, in his palms, and on his back. Is this how he wanted to die? Like a rat cowering at the back of his cage?

"Come on, buddy," he whispered, "get a hold of yourself. How are you supposed to help Kenny when you can't even help yourself?" Cranky gulped down a huge ball of spit forming in his throat and slowly stood up against the will of his own two legs. What did he know about zombies from those horror movies he used to sneak into the theaters and watch? Individually, they were slow and stupid, though incredibly strong and dangerous in numbers. Judging from the noise, there was only one or two trying to get at him from outside the van, but not more than four of them. There hadn't been that much shuffling of feet and the moans seemed to come from only one throat. It was hard to tell if there was just one mutated voice from the rotting vocal cords, or a whole chorus.

Cranky searched the interior of the van to find anything he could use to protect himself. There was a crowbar lying on the ground, beside the wall separating him from the driver seat. On the opposite wall of the van there was a built in shelf with some boxes. He slowly reached over, making a little noise as he could and felt the box – there was no lid. Running his fingers along the lines of the contents, he could tell it was made of heavy duty paper – possibly cardboard. He tried wrapping his fingers around its edges, but couldn't pull it out of its box silently enough.

Why was he so intent on remaining silent? The zombies knew he was there already! Throwing the stealthy approach out the window, Cranky seized the box with both hands, his heart beating in his chest, and turned it upside down. The contents fell all over the dark floor, creating a loud thud as they hit. The pounding outside the van grew more intense. Cranky quickly squat down and ran his hands over the floor of the van. He could've sworn he heard some metallic clinking as the contents hit. With any luck, they would be bullets. Now all he had to do was find a shotgun – and that wouldn't be hard. This being a town in the middle of nowhere, probably once inhabited by rednecks, he was bound to successfully find a shotgun in somebody's house. And hopefully the ammunition in the van with him were shotgun shells – if they were even ammunition to begin with.

But after his hands wrapped around the ammunition case, he picked it up and opened the flip-up lid. He unconsciously let out a sigh of relief when he realized they _were_ bullets. But he was curious – why in the world would the police keep ammunition on a shelf in the back of the van where the criminals were supposed to go? Maybe they were just stored there to fight off the zombies?

**_CRASH!_**

The doors to the van flew open, sending inside the cold night air and the sick stench of death. There standing at the entrance to the van, trying to crawl up and in were two zombies in two very different stages of decay. The closer one, getting into the van, had the skin on half its face hanging off in one sick, slimy flap, revealing graying muscle underneath. It looked hungrily at Cranky with one working eye, the other dangling by a nerve out from its socket. The clothes on its body were nothing but smelly bits of cloth, most of it having been torn off by … Cranky didn't want to know where that walking corpse had been. The second one, following its friend looked freshly dead. It looked like a regular human, with a recognizable face – had Cranky actually known him. It couldn't have been older than twenty – just a young college kid with a backwards facing baseball cap and shaggy hair fanning over its forehead from underneath the cap.

Cranky instinctively reached for the crowbar and swung it forward with all his might, catching the first zombie in the jaw, ripping it off in one swift motion. The large hunk of bone flew from the creature and hit the side of the van with a loud, metallic clang, denting it. The zombie continued its approach regardless, even though the blow had snapped its neck. Wait … was the body still moving? Or was its nerves still acting up? The second proved to be true once the creature fell backward onto the road outside, its brain still alive but its body dead and uncooperative. The body of the first proved to be rather difficult obstacle for the second zombie.

It tripped over its companion and began crawling towards the back of the van. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Cranky jumped from the van, making sure that he landed on the skull of the crawling cannibal. Being a fresh corpse, the skull hadn't decayed enough for Cranky to crush it when he landed with both heels on the back of its head, forcing its face painfully into the pavement. He had to fight to keep his balance, but was successful in the attempt. Running from the two zombies he just killed with the crowbar in his hand and the box of shotgun ammunition tucked under his other arm, he made a dash for the streets.

He'd run a few good city blocks before he grew weary and stopped to catch his breath. A refreshing breeze blew about his body, sending his black T-shirt into ripples in the wind. The air was beginning to chill him a little too, and the decaying flesh smell of death still lingered. He scanned the surrounding area for anything that might come at him while he tried to catch his breath. But he spotted nothing but vehicles scattered randomly throughout the street. Mitsubishis, Toyotas, Fords – random vehicles whether they were vans, jeeps, cars, cruisers, all the different colors of the rainbow suffering various degrees of damage, had one thing in common – they were all abandoned. Loose sheets of paper flew over the street like ghosts riding in the wind. Not a single light in the two-storey Victorian houses lining both sides of the street were on. Any window on the ground level had been smashed either by occupants trying to escape, or the undead trying to get in.

Cranky's eyes fell upon a single police cruiser that had wrapped itself around a telephone pole. Little crystalline cubes of tempered glass surrounding the damaged cruiser – it was hard to tell if the car had occupants, but it didn't matter. What he was after was a gun that went with the shotgun rounds he'd found in the evacuation van. Hell, he'd be happy if he found a handgun.

Working his way to the passenger side of the car – he figured that if there were any spare guns, they'd either be kept in the glove compartment or the boot, he went to check the front passenger seat – and instantly found a corpse. Cranky reeled back in fright for a second but forced himself to calm down. Did he not just kill two walking corpses? Why should this one be any different? It sat leaning over, its head twisted sideways facing towards the left, away from Cranky. Streaks of blood ran down the dashboard from where its head lay, and its torso was obscuring the glove compartment.

He reached his hand out slowly to the corpse, unsure whether it was undead or actually dead. There was a big difference between the two. He placed his hand on its shoulder, surprised to find the body warm, especially on this chilly night. Could it have been freshly killed, like the previous zombie he'd just disposed of? There was no way. The blood that stained the dashboard looked dry – a dry brown color instead of a radiant red. If the body died when the blood was spilled, it would've been cold and tense. But it was warm … and when Cranky pushed it back so that it was leaning back onto the seat, its head fell back onto the headrest too, indicating a flexible neck. This one was still alive!

It was hard to make out the passengers face but he was a youth not much younger than the zombie Cranky had just killed. He opened the car door and undid the seatbelt.

"Hey, buddy," Cranky said, shaking him by the shoulders lightly, "you gotta wake up. It's dangerous out here!" But the teen lay limp in the seat. He swung his right arm behind both of the passenger's knees and wrapped the other around his shoulders, lifting the youth out of the wreckage. But when the dim light of the dying street light revealed the youth's face, Cranky almost dropped the unconscious form onto the sidewalk in shock.

There was no mistaking the black hair, the almond shaped eyes, and the ten year old face though he was actually five years older than that.

"Kenny!" There was no response. But there was no way he was dead. Just to be sure, Cranky pressed the back of his fingers underneath Kenny's jaw, and to his relief, felt a light pulse. "We've gotta get you to a doctor, kiddo." Cranky knew it was dangerous to move someone from the scene of an accident, in case they had any internal injuries that could be worsened just from being moved. But somehow, he knew that Kenny wasn't hurt. Maybe it was the fact that he'd been wearing a seatbelt. He ran his fingers along his joints, skull and ribs, and couldn't find any signs of broken bones. There was a deep gash on Kenny's forehead, but it felt like a cut, not a broken bone. Sofar, everything seemed alright with Cranky's kid brother.

But other questions began bothering him. Who was driving the car? Why had they abandoned it, knowing that someone else was inside? Did they believe Kenny to be dead? His gaze wandered to the top of the cruiser, and he noticed a deep gash running down the center of the roof. The cut was smooth, unlike the rest of the torn metal that was left of the car. What could have caused _that_?

Something cold and hard brushed across the back of Cranky's skull. He would've turned around to see what it was if the possibility didn't already occur to him, the possibility that it could've been the muzzle of a gun. And the voice that followed confirmed his fears as he lifted his hands clearly in the air.

"Don't you make a fucking move."

"Whoa, just take it easy, man," Cranky said calmly, hoping not to aggravate his mysterious attacker. A soft click of the safety on the gun going back on was heard, and he felt the pressure of the barrel lift from the back of his head. His attacker gave a sigh, and that's when Cranky made his move. With impossibly quick reflexes refined from years of thievery, he grabbed the gun by the barrel and twisted it out of his assailant's grasp. As the handle flung towards him, Cranky seized it with his other hand and aimed the gun directly at the man's chest.

"Sorry, amigo," he said with a slight Spanish accent as he raised his arms after having the tables unexpectedly turn on him, "the way you were kneeling over that corpse and how you stood up so slowly after that … I just thought you were a zombie, man."

Cranky relaxed his tense muscles and lowered the weapon. Facing him was a man about his height with an olive complexion. His brown hair was cut into the beginnings of a mullet. He wore a sleeveless green vest and khaki colored pants, complete with knee pads and boots. And the gun Cranky had snatched was no pistol – it looked like a sub-machine gun of some sort. Cranky wasn't good with firearms. He made his living as a thief, not a robber. Whoever this guy was, he looked like he was prepared for the legions of the undead, ready to kick their rotting asses – well, not anymore since Cranky now had his gun.

"Sometimes, it isn't good to jump to conclusions," Cranky said, handing the gun back over to its original wielder. He tipped his chin and the unconscious Kenny lying on the ground. "And he's not dead either. I found a pulse."

"That don't mean he's not infected, man," the man said.

"Watch what you say about my kid bro," Cranky said, stepping closer to the man, pushing him with his broad chest.

"Sorry, I …" the man looked at the youth on the ground, and back at Cranky who was attempting to intimidate him. "I don't see how you guys can be related …"

"What's it to you?! Just step the fuck away and …"

"Look man, I don't want any trouble. I just thought you were a zombie but I was mistaken. Can we just forget this? I got somebody I need to help and it looks like this kid needs help too. So if we could just work together, amigo, then …"

"Sorry," Cranky apologized, relaxing again, "I've just been through a lot in the last couple hours."

The man placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure we all have." He extended a hand. "The name's Carlos Oliveira."

Cranky took it and they shared a handshake. "Craig Crankurt. But just call me Cranky."

Carlos smirked. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"So I see you're pretty well equipped to handle the zombies," Cranky said, acknowledging Carlos' garb. "Any chance there might be more of you guys around here?"

"They're all dead as far as I know," Carlos explained. "Umbrella sent us here to rescue civilians. The pickup point is at the Raccoon City clock tower, right by the hospital. I'm just scouting the city for survivors right now."

"Well if I hadn't been here, you would've missed my brother," Cranky said. "He's not dead, although he sure looks like it. How many people might you have accidentally missed already?" Carlos hung his head slightly in guilt. "Look, I didn't mean to make you feel bad or anything."

"I gotta admit, it's hard to concentrate on my assignment – looking for survivors and all that. There's this other survivor I found – she's a police officer resting back at the clock tower and she's infected with the T-Virus. She'll turn into a zombie if I don't find a proper vaccine."

"Hold on," Cranky said, holding a hand up. "So that's what causing these zombies? Something called the T-Virus?"

"I'm not sure how it works," Carlos admitted, "but I know that if you receive and open would from the zombies, you're infected and it'll only be a matter of time before you turn into one."

"And what kind of sick person would unleash the virus throughout the city?" Cranky asked, shocked and bewildered.

"I don't know if it was released in the city," Carlos explained. "Rumors are that there was an outbreak in one of Umbrella's secret labs up in the mountains. But they're rumors – that's it. We don't even know that Umbrella had a lab up there."

"Whoa stop, you're talking to me like I know everything about this place! I just got here earlier this evening."

"You picked a great time to come, amigo."

"Who's Umbrella?"

"Man, you really did your research before coming, didn't you? Umbrella's the pharmaceutical company that practically runs this town. And the rumors – again, rumors – are that they're the ones responsible for the outbreak out in the mountains."

"And do you believe the rumors?" Cranky asked.

Carlos shook his head. "I don't know. I don't ask either. Umbrella employs me, you know."

"Wouldn't the rumors explain the cannibal murders on the outskirts of town?"

"Hey, hey, I thought you said you didn't know anything about this place!" Carlos said, jabbing an accusing finger.

"Someone I ran into in town today told me." Cranky's mind drifted back to Cindy, that cute waitress back at J's Bar. He wondered what she was doing at the moment. He wondered if she was still alive. Cranky was torn at that moment. He wanted to see Cindy again. But he looked back at Kenny, Carlos tending to the teen's wounds, realizing that he'd found his brother and there was nothing left for them in the city. But Cindy … the way she helped him with such accurate directions back at the bar …

"Hey, Carlos," Cranky said, reaching for the box of bullets he left on the roof of the car, you got a gun that's compatible with these shells?"

"Yeah," Carlos replied, unstrapping a shotgun from around his shoulders, "you can have this. Try to use it."

"I shouldn't have a problem doing that," Cranky replied, loading the shells into the firearm. "Listen, I'm gonna have to ask a little favor of you."

"What is it?"

"You were sent here to rescue survivors, right?"

"Yeah," Carlos replied, looking slightly confused.

"If you can look after Kenny for me, I'd really appreciate it." Cranky began stepping away from the wreckage.

"Hold on, amigo, where are you going?" Carlos called after him.

"To look for survivors!" Cranky replied, right before he broke into a full run. He ran fast, his voice already fading into the distance with every passing syllable.

"That's MY job!" Carlos yelled, not sure if he could be heard any longer.


	5. Chapter 4: Showdown

Cranky wandered the streets with his shotgun in tow for a few minutes feeling completely energized by the thought of rescuing Cindy. He would be a hero – HER hero. But it had taken those few minutes for his brain to kick in, finally overpowering his testosterone charged body.

How in the world was he going to locate her? Back at J's Bar, the zombies were starting to gather around the main street by the time he'd left in the escape vehicle. Officer Raymond had told him that another was on its way. So if Cindy had survived, she'd be evacuated by now. And if she hadn't made it to the van, she was as good as dead. The zombies must've broken into the bar and overrun it by now.

Then, the answer hit him like a brick. The police precinct. That's where the survivors had to be taken! Where else could the police be taking the civilians? What safer spot in the entire city than the police station!

Cranky vaguely remembered passing the station shortly before he fell asleep. And Kenny was found in a crashed police cruiser not too far from where Cranky had stopped. What where the chances that two police vehicles would end up so close to each other, unless they were both heading in the same direction from the precinct before branching off into their own routes? There was a pretty good chance that the precinct would be close by and he was walking in the direction that the cars had been going, not where they'd come from.

Doing a complete 180, Cranky turned and jogged back the way he came, the wind howling around him like some unholy ghost, trying to repel him from carrying out his good intentions. He continued running for a few minutes, his physically able body able to take the long distance. He passed the police cruiser where he found Kenny, glad to see that neither he nor Carlos were there anymore, which meant that were safe. He mentally kicked himself for not asking Carlos the whereabouts to his base of operations. If he was rescuing civilians, where was he storing them?

It was too late to ponder any of that now as Cranky continued running down the street, his head scanning both sides of the street for any zombies that might be lurking in the shadows. Sofar, he'd seen none, probably because he was in a residential area where there was little room to move about. Downtown, however, was a different story. That's where all their food was. Cranky felt lucky in that sick way as he continued his trek down the street, decorated on both sides with beautiful, yet abandoned Victorian style houses.

And then, rising like the sun beyond the horizon, he saw it. There was no mistaking the grand, Roman influenced architecture or the flags of the United States and Raccoon City displayed proudly above the double green doors that served as a main entrance. Standing proudly was a giant building, big enough to be a mansion. It was flanked on both sides by neatly trimmed shrubs that curved around the front entrance, serving as a perimeter for the grassy lawns. Set in large, bold letters lit from underneath by a pair of fisheye lights were the letters R.P.D. He was here.

Cranky opened the gate with one hand, the other gripping the shotgun tightly. He wasn't going to take any chances, keeping it at waist level in case anything decided to jump out at him. A few feet away, he spotted a zombie groaning in hunger, though not paying attention to him. He was probably to far away. Cranky could make out a yellow vest on the zombie with the word S.T.A.R.S. sewed into the back. The zombie wore camouflaged cargo pants and black combat boots. It was probably a member of some police squad but … not anymore. Deciding to save his ammunition, Cranky ignored the zombie and made his way into the police station.

**XXXXX**

A pair of sharp blue eyes scanned the main hall of the R.P.D. This was the biggest space in the entire police station, and the most hollow. If the kid was around here, he would hear him. The rookie cop brushed his long brown hair out from his eyes, reminding himself that he needed to get it cut. His mind returned to the boy that he'd instructed to remain in the S.T.A.R.S. office. Yet when he'd returned there, the boy had vanished into thin air.

Leon S. Kenny, on his first day on the job, decided that the citizens of Raccoon City were out of whack. Not that the zombies didn't prove it already, but the ones who were left alive should've known that their chances of assuring their survival was to stick together, especially with a police officer that he was!

Leon smirked. "Only that today's your first day on the job and you have no idea what you're doing," he said to himself. First, it was little Kenny running pulling off a disappearing act from the S.T.A.R.S. office, then it was that mysterious lady in the red dress, Ada Wong. He'd instructed both of them to stay close, but Kenny didn't listen and Ada had run off spouting something about looking for a boyfriend.

He could honestly say that he was torn between his job and his survival instincts. There was a primal fear in Leon that screamed at him to get out of the police station and as far away from the city as possible. But there was the righteous, moral voice in his head, the same voice that directed him to becoming a police officer that told him to stay and search for the two civilians. He knew they were alive and he would never let himself leave them alone until he either had them by his side or confirmed their deaths.

Leon reached into his pockets and pulled out four electronic plugs of similar size, labeled Queen, Jack, King, and Rook. He knew exactly where these belonged, in an electronic console set the underground level of the station, beyond the parking lot, through a secret spider infested walkway. This was definitely the most cryptic police station he'd ever encountered. Sofar tonight, he'd solved a queen, king and jack puzzle, returned a missing gear to the station's grand clock, and put out the burning helicopter wreckage on the rooftop. All of it was to obtain these four plugs that he felt certain would unlock the door that would lead to the sewers – and hopefully, an escape route.

Then he heard it – a set of footsteps. Leon instinctively stopped breathing and strained his ears to hear. He thought he heard human footsteps, not the shuffling of zombie feet. Leon had a good view of the space, standing on the second level walkway of the precinct that wrapped around the wall of the main hall. He was standing centre of the walkway at the back of the hall, overlooking the entire space. Beneath him was a metal ladder that he'd used to climb up to where he stood.

A deep groan filled the space. His eyes shot to the main doors of the hall, hoping that it was either Ada or Kenny coming through. But it was neither. At least, it wasn't a zombie, or one of those skinless humanoid creatures either. It was a red haired man. He walked tall, broad shoulders bent back with his chest sticking out. He bore an expression of caution, but not fear. Leon decided that this was an individual who could handle himself in the middle of the hell that was Raccoon City. Perhaps he could even help Leon. The two of could make it out of the city if they watched each other's backs – assuming that this Raccoon City citizen agreed to stick with him.

"Hey!" Leon called out, waving the man over.

The man looked up at him and slapped a hand to his forehead. "It's so good to see a cop around here."

"And it's good to see another human being in this crazy place," Leon replied.

"What about the survivors?" the man asked. "Weren't they brought here?"

"There are no survivors," Leon replied regretfully.

**XXXXX**

****

Cranky's heart sank. What did the cop mean by 'no survivors'? Obviously that he was the only one alive, most likely. But Cindy … Cranky didn't know why but he really wanted to see her again. He almost felt that by sheer will, he could prevent her from dying or raise her from the dead.

"But that can't be," he insisted, "I thought the survivors were brought here!"

"Trust me, buddy, the survivors are all dead," the cop replied. "I was told to rescue them from the rooms and find an escape route by one of my co-workers when I started my shift. But by the time I got there, they'd all turned into …"

"You didn't happen to see a waitress among them, did you?" Cranky didn't know why he asked the question. But he knew Cindy was a pretty girl and the cop most likely would've noticed too. "Blonde girl, really cute?"

He shook his head. "Today's my first day on the job. I didn't get a good look at the survivors when they were brought in the other day."

The other day? Cranky had just run into Cindy today! She wasn't part of the group of survivors that had turned into zombies! "Have there been any other civilians arriving?"

"Besides me and the three people I ran into tonight, there's been nobody. But we all found our way here – not brought here by the police."

Good, the cop was answering all of the questions Crank was going to ask next. So the chances of Cindy being here were slim, then. Cranky's hopes of finding her may have been dashed, and his selfish wants and desires told him to leave the police station and continue his search. But he didn't feel right leaving the cop to look for the other survivors without help. Besides, Cindy could've been dead for all he knew.

"Come on," the cop said, calling Cranky over to where he stood, "let's work together and find a way out of this mess." Cranky agreed, and headed over to the steel ladder that led to the second level balcony.

"The name's Cranky."

There was a nod of acknowledgement. "Officer Leon S. Kenny."

"So, Officer," Cranky began, "where do we begin to look for these missing people?"

"The ladies have headed off to the sewers," Leon replied, holding out his hand. "And I think these plugs will secure our own entrance into the sewers. I'm hoping we'll meet up with them there."

"If they're already gone, what are you still doing here?"

"I just wanted to take a last look around for Kenny before I go. The kid's gone missing on me."

Cranky's heart leapt in his throat. He pointed a shaky finger at Leon and asked, "How do you know Kenny?"

Leon gave him a look of confusion. "He's one of the survivors, only I'm not sure if he's a survivor anymore." Leon looked down at the ground, disappointed at himself for failing to protect the innocent.

"He is," Cranky replied, a grin spreading across his face. "I came to Raccoon City to pay him a visit – we've been friends for pretty much all our lives. But I just ran into him on the streets. He's unconscious, but alive – under the care of one of Umbrella's Soldiers."

Leon stared at Cranky in disbelief. "You intentionally left him with an Umbrella Soldier?"

"Is there something wrong with that?" he asked, looking a little concerned.

"Umbrella's the company behind this mess! That soldier's probably gonna feed your friend to the zombies to get himself out of here alive!"

Cranky's heart skipped a beat. What Leon serious? Carlos seemed like a decent guy with respectable moral views. "No, the soldier was in the city looking for survivors," Cranky insisted. But he didn't find himself believing his own words. What Carlos told him easily could've been a cover up. And Cranky had been so foolishly trusting of him that he didn't even consider that Carlos would be lying. But why would anyone be lying in the middle of a city-wide disaster like this? People were supposed to band together and work with each other to escape, right?

Then the thought occurred to him – Carlos said that a survivor was recuperating at the clock tower. That's where his group was based, and it was likely that's where he'd taken Kenny.

"Where's the Raccoon City Clock Tower?" Cranky asked Leon, seemingly out of the blue.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because I think that's where the Umbrella Soldier went," Cranky explained. "Look, I don't know if he really was one of the good guys, but he did a pretty good job of convincing me that he was. I've got to find him and make sure Kenny's in good hands …" _before I continue my search for Cindy,_ he added sub-consciously.

Leon supposed Cranky had his reasons for leaving the police station, and not sticking with him. Leon half expected it though. So far nobody he'd run into tonight had stuck with him. Why should this guy be any different? Sighing outwardly, he explained to Cranky how to get to the clock tower.

**XXXXX**

****

Career criminal Jake Cavanaugh stalked the dilapidated streets of Raccoon City in search for a man. He reached into his denim pockets and pulled out the snapshot of the man, Dr. William Birkin, to remind himself of what this character looked like. As he stared at the picture, at the image of a blonde scrawny scientist with shaggy hair, Jake imagined ten million dollars. This was the face of ten million dollars, and that money would be his after he eliminated Dr. Birkin.

Jake thought back to events that had let up to this moment. He'd come into town in search of the scientist earlier today – or was that yesterday? He couldn't remember. After grabbing a bite to eat at a local bar, things got shot to hell. Zombies – he'd decided by now that that's what those creatures were – had overrun the joint and simultaneously, the entire city. Since the first one appeared back at J's Bar, they'd seem to be running amuck wherever in the city he went.

He'd met some interesting survivors along the way – Kevin the police officer, Eric the brave but stupid college student, Jim the cowardly subway attendant and Cindy the bar's waitress, just to name a few. They escaped the bar together, but had since been split up. Jake put on the aura of an innocent man caught up in the mess, not wanting to reveal his true intentions to his fellow survivors. But now that they had scattered, he was free to carry out his mission.

Jake couldn't help feeling a slight concern for the others, though. Over the years, he'd trained himself to suppress his compassion for others – it only got in the way of achieving mission objectives. But tonight, since the zombie infestation, seeing people get eaten right before his very eyes time after time, all the trauma had taken a toll even on an experienced, cold blooded killer like Jake himself. The rocket explosion that had completely destroyed the police escape vehicle that he and the other survivors were riding in was gigantic, big enough to separate everyone. Jake wondered if he was alone, cut off completely without any companions. He was glad it was him to be separated without anyone with him – after all, he had a mission to carry out and couldn't afford to have someone else slow him down. Had it been anybody else … he already felt sorry for them.

Jake stopped by a nearby car parked at the side of the main road, miraculously undamaged from all the chaos and carnage surrounding it. He checked himself out in the reflection, wondering if he looked as shitty as he felt after everything that had happened to him.

He had to take a step back to get a good view of his face. Being 6'3", his whole upper torso wasn't easily visible standing so close to the car. His jeans were torn in a few places and stained with the bodily fluids of zombies he'd killed earlier that night. His dark brown hair hung in greasy locks, framing a pair of cold, gray eyes that had recently been revealed from behind a pair of sunglasses that he'd lost track of. The black T-shirt that hugged a powerful, muscular body was emblazoned with an intricate design of a red dragon. His trench coat was beginning to tear from all the action it had seen tonight. But it still did its job well – to conceal all the weapons he had. There was a nine millimeter handgun sitting comfortably in its holster strapped to his waist. He wore a shoulder holster housing a powerful magnum, and an automatic shotgun on the inside of the trench coat. He still looked ready to tackle the undead and that was good enough for him.

A sound somewhere in the distance caught Jake's attention. He heard faint shouting from more than one person. Perhaps it was the band of survivors he'd traveled with? Or were they a totally different band of survivors? He caught himself hoping for the company of others again. He had an assassination to carry out! But it wouldn't hurt just to see what the commotion was about, right?

Jake continued down the street, not turning at the junction. He eventually came to a graveyard, fenced off from the sidewalk and saw a triad of unfamiliar faces scaling the fence. He stood in the middle of the deserted road and watched the three make it onto his side of the fence.

The woman was the first to notice him. She had short black hair, pale skin and dark eyes – of Asian descent. She wore a red form fitting cocktail dress that hugged her body, showing curves in all the right places. Jake continued staring for a lust filled second longer.

The next was an athletically built man around Jake's age, maybe a few years older. Like Jake, this guy had dark brown hair, only it was slicked back, and a rough, hard face decorated with razor stubble. The dark blue wife beater he wore was stained with sweat and blood. But the most interesting characteristic of this guy was the elaborate tattoo that ran over his arm completely stating "Mother Love."

The final survivor, also of Asian descent, was a mere teenager, a few years from graduating from high school, Jake guessed. He had on a yellow T-shirt and black shorts – regularly dressed except that on his face, he wore an expression of fatigue. There was a bandaged wrapped around his forehead with a large, crusty blood stain on it. The scratches on his face looked like he'd gotten into a fight with a monster cat. The three of them vaguely resembled a family.

"Why, hello there," the woman spoke first in a sultry voice, noticing Jake.

"You look like you've been through hell," the man commented.

"Something like that," Jake replied, scratching the back of his head. "You think you guys could spare some ammo?" Jake grabbed the opening of his trench coat and exposed his arsenal, strapped to his body. "I'm not sure what kind of ammunition you've got but …"

"We could really use some guns like that," the teen said, gazing at the shotgun in his coat.

"Sorry, kid," Jake said, closing up his coat. "I've got some things to take care of and these weapons are what's gonna help me out."

The man shook his head. "Sorry, but we can't just hand over our ammo. We need it to contribute to our escape. If you've got other plans, then screw it." This man spoke in a gruff voice, absent of any regard for Jake. Jake had refused to co-operate with them, and he in turn had refused any co-operation with him either. Jake recognized that he possessed the same personality trait and in another situation, would have walked away. But they were in the middle of a ghost town with the undead infesting the streets. Jake needed the ammunition to live and he needed it to carry out his mission in assassinating William Birkin. He'd already wasted what he'd brought with him on the zombie attacks – attacks that he wasn't expecting upon entering the town.

As the man turned away, gesturing towards his two friends to do the same, Jake made his move, lunging for him.

"Shit, Billy!" the woman cried.

Jake and Billy tumbled over each other on the asphalt now, grappling violent with each other, both of them trying to get a good strike in. Billy was strong in his own respects, but Jake had sheer size over the man and landed a few good punches to his jaw. But Billy had taken it well, ramming his own fist into Jake's stomach from time to time, weakening the criminal's hold on him.

An audible click of a gun could be heard. Jake looked up, about to strike Billy in the face one more time and noticed the woman in the red dress, pointing a handgun at his forehead, the barrel of the gun just a foot away from his head.

"Get off of him, NOW!" she ordered.

Jake slowly raised his hands. "Listen, lady, I don't want any trouble. Just ammo."

"Well attacking us isn't exactly-" she never got to finish her sentence. Jake, with his inhumanly quick reflexes had taken the gun from the woman and turned it around on her in one swift motion. It was now her turn to put her hands up.

"I want everything you've got," Jake said calmly. He turned his head slightly, talking to Billy and the teen, but never taking his eyes off the woman. "Either of you move and I shoot the bitch."

The woman flipped backwards, her feet kicking the gun out from Jake's hand like some kind of a ninja. The firearm went sailing into the air. The woman kicked Jake in the chest, pushing him painfully away with a heeled stiletto and caught the gun again. But before she had the chance to aim the gun, Jake performed a spinning back kick, knocking her to the ground.

The force was strong enough to knock her down and keep her there, while Billy was still recovering from the multiple blows received earlier from Jake. Only the teenager was left now and Jake turned around to face him, half expecting the kid to be cowering in fear. "Like taking candy from a baby," he said to himself.

"Kenny," Billy said weakly, "get out of here." But the teen stayed his ground, much to Jake's surprise, staring back at him defiantly.

"Don't make this harder for yourself than it has to be," Jake said. "Just hand over your ammo, and I'll leave the three of you well alone."

Jake reached out his arm, expecting the teen to hand it over. But what he got instead, was a lightning fast judo flip. Kenny reached out with his hand and seized Jake's wrist, pulling the bigger man towards him. Kenny kicked his foot out, tripping Jake as he fell forward, and with his hand still grasping Jake's wrist, flipped the career criminal over as he landed on his back with a loud thud.

Jake jumped back to his feet and struck Kenny in blind rage, a powerful back fist that connected with Kenny's cheek, picking him off the ground and throwing him a few meters back from where he once stood.

It took a long moment for Kenny to get back up – but the fact that he was able to surprised Jake. He'd hit the kid harder than he did the woman and Billy and yet, the first to get up was this scrawny teenager less than half Jake's weight! Jake hid his surprise well as he spoke.

"You sure you can take anymore?" he asked with a cocky smile on his face.

Kenny produced a glass bottle from his pocket, filled with a gray looking liquid. He threw his arm forward and the bottle sailed towards Jake who batted it away with his hand. But the moment his hand came into contact with the bottle, the force broke the glass and a minor explosion occurred. It wasn't strong enough to damage Jake, but it was enough to distract him. The kid took off with a knapsack strapped to his back, running down the street away from Jake as fast as he could.

Jake coughed the smoke out of his lungs and followed in pursuit. He needed the ammunition in that bag. There wasn't nearly enough in Billy's or the woman's gun, but there should've definitely been more than enough in the kid's bag.

Kenny didn't start showing signs of weariness until about seven or eight city blocks of running. Jake was surprised at his stamina, but was able to last longer nonetheless. He eventually caught up to the teen and withdrew the combat knife tucked into his boot. Jake didn't want to kill anyone, let alone a kid for some measly ammunition so he threw the knife, shooting it through one of the bag straps, pinning him to a crashed car.

Jake advanced towards the struggling teen, trying to intimidate him using their difference in size. From what he could tell sofar, it was working – finally! So he knew when to give up!

"Piss off, you fucking ogre," Kenny spat. Okay, maybe he didn't know when after all.

"Look man, you think I like doing this sort of thing?" Jake asked. "I got some business to take care of, and you've got what I need. If I wanted to kill you, I would've thrown this knife at your neck."

Kenny remained silent as Jake opened up the bag he was wearing. Kenny silently slipped his arms out from the straps, thinking that Jake wouldn't notice until he said, "One wrong move and I will kill you." Though he was free from the bag now, there was nothing he could do to stop Jake from taking their precious ammo.

"So how do you think we're gonna survive, then?" he asked, throwing his hands up in the air. "You're taking away our only hope of survival. We've worked hard, searched everywhere for all this and you just come and …" Kenny shook his head. "You fucking jerk. I hope you get eaten alive for this."

"Step away from the kid," a third voice interrupted.

Jake looked up from the pack and saw a figure standing a few meters away, toting a powerful looking shotgun aimed at him. It was a red haired guy with a similar build to Jake. There was a no-nonsense frown on his lips and his brows were furrowed, expressing deeply angered green eyes. The man looked familiar – it was the guy that had come into J's Bar earlier that evening, asking for directions.

Kenny seemed to recognize the figure two as his eyes widened in surprise.

"Cranky?"

**Authors Note:** Jake Cavanaugh is a character borrowed from fellow author, **E-Z B**. "World of the Undead – File 2" is loosely connected with his Resident Evil story, "Darkness Arises" and I encourage all my readers to go and check out his work. It's definitely worth a good look.


	6. Chapter 5: Shots in the Night

Cranky had found who he was looking for, though he hadn't quite reached his intended destination yet – the Raccoon City clock tower. He was just a few blocks away from it when he noticed Kenny, alive and about, looking alert – and then Cranky's eye caught sight of a larger form just behind him, a large, threatening looking man chasing him looking pretty pissed off.

The thought that anyone would dare lay a finger on Kenny enraged Cranky enough to approach the matter with his firearm raised. As it were, they were all in enough trouble being in a city infested with the walking dead and here was someone trying to create more trouble. It was the combination of both factors that made Cranky lose his temper in an instant.

Quick as he was, by the time he leapt into action, the man already had Kenny pinned to a crashed car with a combat knife through one of the straps on the backpack he wore. The kid slipped out of the bag while the man tore into it, pocketing its contents.

"Step away from the kid," Cranky said, bringing the shotgun up to waist level, aiming it so that it would punch a hole right through the assailant's chest and abdomen.

"Cranky!" Kenny cried in surprise. The man raised his arms, as if to surrender.

"Put everything back in the bag," Cranky ordered. The man listened, emptying his pockets, putting little boxes back into the bag. What in the world was Kenny carrying?

"He's trying to take our ammo," Kenny said, cocking his head in the larger man's direction. "You can't let him get away with it, Cranky. It's our only way of getting out of this mess!"

"And I got a head to collect," the man said, a smirk forming on one side of his mouth. "You're only standing in my way. Let me have what I want, and nobody gets hurt."

"And who the hell are you to be telling us what to do!" Cranky demanded, keeping his firearm raised.

"Jake Cavanaugh, career criminal," the man replied.

"Never heard of you."

"Then you're about to find out what I'm all about." Something moved quickly in the air in front of Jake. There was just a blur of flesh and the next thing Cranky knew, something hard collided with the barrel of the gun with such force, that it was knocked from even his strong grip.

Cranky was still shocked and awed when Jake make his move, ramming his shoulder into his chest, knocking Cranky off his feet. As he landed on the ground, the career criminal lifted a booted foot and came down hard and fast on Cranky's chest, pressing the air out of him. He grasped Jake's ankle with both his hands, pushing the foot off his chest with all the strength his chest and arms could muster, but Jake was putting his full weight on it.

Kenny's friend was wheezing, he could hear it. Jake was slowly crushing Cranky's lungs in and there was nothing Kenny could do. Or was there? He felt around this pockets for something he could throw. There were those bottles filled with that strange, combustible gray liquid. But there weren't any more. Perhaps if he could get to his backpack while Jake was occupied with Cranky ...

But the career criminal seized Kenny by the arm just as the teen began to take off and twisted it behind his back. "Don't you get and fucking bright ideas," he spat into his ear.

Cranky delivered a well timed karate chop into the back of Jake's knee and shook himself free from the ground. He performed a kickup, landing squarely on two feet and threw a punch aimed at Jake's jaw. Jake was forced to let Kenny go, throwing him into the crumbled remains of the car and retaliated against Cranky's attack, blocking the punch effectively with his forearm. Jake took Cranky's upper arm in one hand, his wrist in the other, and threw him over his body in a wide arc, planting him into the ground for the second time in ten seconds.

Cranky shook his head, gathering his thoughts. This guy was no pushover. Then again, neither was Cranky. Which only meant that whoever he was fighting, this guy had some serious martial arts training behind him. Cranky could hold his own in a fight, but because he'd spent most of his life as a thief on the streets, he never had to apply his brawling skills that often. Nab and run, that was always his method, it was what he was good at. But Jake ... had this guy been living on the streets of Osaka alongside him, Cranky knew Jake would've own the whole lot of them when it came to fighting for food. He wondered how Jake would've been able to scare the Japanese police officers if he was ever caught.

But there was no time to think about that now. The career criminal was barelling towards him in a football style tackle. Cranky dodged off to one side and kicked his leg out, bashing his knee into Jake's arm. He must've hit the nerve, because Jake suddenly went down, cradling his arm. Cranky took the opportunity to attacking, bashing Jake with an double-fisted overhead strike that connected with his upper back. Jake's face met the concrete immediately and now it was Cranky's turn to stomp the living daylights out of the career criminal. He brought his foot up took it down hard on his upper back. He could've crushed his skull, but Cranky wasn't interested in killing anybody.

"Get me the shotgun, Kenny," Cranky ordered, and the teen went to fetch the fallen firearm without a word. He picked it off the pavement and tossed it over to Cranky, who caught it with one hand. He aimed the shotgun and pointed it at Jake again, but this moment of triumph wasn't to last as Jake turned the tables again, seizing the barrel of the gun, pushing the handle into Cranky's nose. There was a splash of warm blood on his face – but it wasn't Jake's.

"Holy shit!" Kenny cried, panicked, "Watch out Cranky, he's gonna …"

**BANG!**

**XXXXX**

The viral streets of Raccoon raced by Billy and Ada as they ran as fast as their feet could carry them, their bodies warm with adrenaline while the gentle wind against their bare skin did nothing to cool them down. Two pairs of eyes scanned the surrounding environment for any movement, any sign of life – uninfected life, Kenny's life. They had been jogging up and down the same stretch of road for five minutes … or had it been ten already? It was hard to tell.

"We've lost them," Ada finally admitted defeat. "He could've killed Kenny by now."

"He's not dead until we confirm it," Billy said, taking his handgun from its holster on his waist. "They could've run anywhere. The streets are a maze and we don't have the time to search them all, especially not with the possibility of zombies around every …"

"Shh! Did you hear that?" Ada said, holding a finger to her lips.

Billy quieted down and listened. Yes! There was someone moving just a few feet from where they stood!"

"Kenny!" Billy called. "Are you alright?"

"Ughhh …" There was a weak reply coming from a dark alley that flanked them on the right.

"Sounds like him," Ada said, "let's go check it out."

"Ada, wait!" Billy insisted, but it was no use. She had already gone, disappearing around the bend. Billy rolled his eyes at her impulsiveness. He was glad to have her along for the ride to get out of Raccoon. He wasn't so sure anymore that he could've rescued Rebecca even if she had been in the city.

That was the reason he'd come here after all. Rebecca, the rookie member of Raccoon's Special Tactics and Rescue Squad, otherwise known as the S.T.A.R.S. that had saved Billy's life, not just on their mission in the Raccoon forest together, but what happened after as well. She'd lied to her superiors, telling them that Billy Coen was dead. He guessed they believed her because there was no hit squad sent after him following the train incident in the forest.

Billy hadn't expected to get the opportunity to repay her for her kindness. Doing so would probably draw attention to him, taking into consideration who she worked for and who she must've associated with as a result. And if any of her co-workers recognized him, all of Rebecca's work covering his ass would've been undone. He'd be executed, and she'd probably be jailed for conspiring with a "dangerous offender." He wouldn't put her at such a risk, and stayed well away from her.

But after reports of the Raccoon murders were sent through the airwaves, Billy couldn't help but wonder if she was okay. He'd fought alongside her before and was well aware of her capabilities in the field. But there was a voice at the back of his mind forcing him to go into the city to check up on her. It wasn't even going to be a meeting. He was just going to walk by her somewhere in the halls of the precinct, make sure she was okay, and then get himself the hell out of there. It was such a simple plan, absolutely nothing to it. And what had happened instead?

Billy had walked right into the S.T.A.R.S. office without even knowing it – his first mistake. And his second was meeting up with … well … Kenny – who proudly informed his to his disappointment and to his relief that Rebecca was no longer in town. The little Chinese kid had a smart mouth and a fuck-all attitude, but there was something about him that Billy felt protective of. They had been separated already once that night and ran back into each other at the clock tower with Ada by Billy's side.

The woman was good with a gun. Kenny wasn't. Ada could fire in rapid succession and not even blink, not to mention her aim was impeccable. Kenny was flimsy. He picked up how to shoot pretty quickly for a novice, but given their situation, he wasn't learning fast enough. Together, the ragtag group of survivors had scaled the Raccoon City park, right beside the cemetery, promising not to lose sight of each other – and then Jake came. And now, they were separated within a few seconds of making their promises to each other.

"AHH!" An ear piercing shriek had interrupted Billy's thoughts. It was Ada! He dashed around the corner after her, hearing three quick gunshots. He saw her backed up against the back of the alley, sitting on the grungy ground with her handgun extended out. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. A trickle of sweat dripped down one side of her face.

Billy's eyes followed the direction of Ada's gaze and he saw it – a dead zombie, a teenager around Kenny's age, lying in a pool of its own blood, lifeless on the ground.

"It wasn't him," Ada managed to choke out.

"Good," Billy said. "Now what do you say we get out of here and find him?"

And that was when they heard it, a familiar voice traveling through the dead air of the night.

_"Holy shit, watch out Cranky! He's gonna …"_

Then a gunshot. Then, silence.


	7. Chapter 6: Parting Ways

When he'd fallen, Cranky expected to feel blood gushing from his abdomen. Jake Cavanaugh had ripped the shotgun from his hands and aimed the barrel at him. Cranky had only a second to make peace with himself, to make sure that he didn't regret anything that had happened to him in his life - a life spent on the streets of Osaka city. It wasn't an easy thing to accept when you were only given a few seconds. Cranky expected the pain to take over his body completely, robbing his mind of any comprehensible thought.

The pain came, but not where he expected. It was his shoulder that felt like it had exploded when he hit the ground. He shot a quick glance at the wound, seeing a streak of torn skin and blood seeping out. Just a flesh wound, he hoped. But there was no time to test it out. Jake Cavanaugh the career criminal was just a few feet away, wrestling for control over the shotgun with Kenny.

Kenny ...

Cranky could've sworn he saw the barrel pointed straight at him. But it must've been Kenny that saved his life, distracting Jake, throwing his aim off. The teen was fighting a losing struggle with the much larger, much stronger career criminal but was somehow able to hold his own in such an unbalanced fight. Jake had the teen pinned to the ground with the shotgun against his throat, trying to suffocate him. To protect himself, Kenny had both of his hands on the gun, trying in vain to push upwards. There were no words spoken, only grunts of effort coming from both parties.

That was when Cranky charged. NOBODY touched his kid brother. Jake seemed to expect the oncoming charge and swiftly drew a combat knife hidden in his boot and performed a vicious slash. Cranky blocked the move with his forearm but tore it up in the process. It could've been worse though. The knife would've collided with his throat had Cranky not effectively blocked.

The air surrounding the immediate area began to grow heavy. Cranky couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he was somehow finding it a little harder to breathe. He glanced quickly at one of the street lights left on - why, he didn't know either. The light was fading. Nothing uncommon in a completely trashed city overrun with the undead, he supposed, but something didn't feel right. Cranky's vision began fading as quickly as the light had. His limbs started losing strength as he was gradually forced to his knees, his legs too weak to keep his weight up. Cranky wasn't able to tell if it was his fading vision or not, but the area was starting to grow darker as well, as if the light from the very moon was being absorbed by ...

Then he saw Kenny, still struggling with Jake. Only this time, what Cranky saw nearly made his jaw drop. The teen was winning the struggle. He had pushed Jake upwards, giving himself enough room to gradually push himself to his feet. The look on Jake's face was priceless. He seemed unaffected by whatever had affected Cranky.

Shadow Technology.

It had kicked into action again. The realization made Cranky's heart sink. The last time he'd seen that technology inside of Kenny work was nine years ago, when they had first met. And now it was happening all over again. He could recognize it in a heartbeat. The technology inside Kenny's body worked by absorbing surrounding energy in any form and used it to sustain itself. Kenny's body itself absorbed the energy, even light, rendering everything black - even his own skin. The energy absorbed glowed from inside his body, showing from behind his eyes, making them look as if they were glowing. Jake was in serious trouble.

XXXXX

The career criminal couldn't quite figure what was going on. One minute he was about to suffocate the kid. He hadn't wanted to kill anyone just to get his hands on some ammunition, but he was beginning to turn into a real pain in the ass. The next minute, the kid had gotten an unexplained burst of energy, gaining the strength to push Jake off of him! It didn't make sense for such a light weight person to be able to produce that kind of strength! Jake suppressed the shock and concentrated on beating the teen, though by now, he was starting to sweat with the effort. Jake almost never sweat with effort. Most people in their right minds would never date mess with him. But here we was, struggling with a mere teenager!

The kid's pupils were practically gone, covered by a translucent white substance, making him look as if he'd completely lost them. This was a feature present in zombies but with the amount of strength Kenny was exerting, he was no zombie. His skin continued to darken to a shade of black – either that or the surrounding illumination was somehow fading. Dark green light shone from behind Kenny's eyes as the he threw a punch that connected with Jake's jaw, miraculously throwing the larger man off of him. Jake flew into the air and crashed into a parked car, denting its metal frame before crashing into the asphalt.

Kenny moved inhumanly fast and was upon Jake within two seconds, attacking the career criminal with a flurry of punches and kicks, his limbs moving so quickly that it was impossible to make them out. Cranky continued to gawk and stare in awe as he could only see Jake's head being thrown left and right by what seemed to be an invisible force, blood and spit spraying from his mouth with every movement.

"Kenny, stop!" Cranky ordered. But the youth wasn't listening and he should've figured just as much. As much as he felt the threat that Jake posed, he wasn't interested in having the career criminal killed. He was a powerful ally against the hordes of the undead, and they couldn't afford to have him die.

"What the fuck!" As if his prayers help had been answered, Cranky spun around in the direction of the new voices to see a pair of people standing just a few feet away, looking towards Kenny beating the daylights out of the career criminal. The woman stood about a head shorter than the man, dressed in a red cocktail dress and black stockings. Her bare arms were coated with sweat and dried blook – whether or not it was hers, Cranky couldn't tell. The man that was with her was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a comfortable looking cotton wife beater, drenched with sweat. They both shared Cranky's expression as they stared at Kenny.

"Stop him!" Cranky said. The two of them only noticed Cranky then, but didn't have to be told twice on what to do. They dashed for the kid, each one seizing him by the arms. Kenny howled in fury, like some sort of rabid animal, clearly startling the newcomers.

Nevertheless, the persevered, pulling him away from the career criminal, who collapsed to the ground with a thud, holding his ribs in pain. Cranky approached him and offered a helping hand, Jake looking up at him with a confused expression on his face.

XXXXX

Saying that Jake was confused was an understatement. His face hurt, his chest and arms hurt, but he could bear the pain. The most overpowering sensation was his bewilderment. Where in the world did that kid get all that strength from? Jake took his punishment well, and the strikes he endured hurt, but were more of an annoyance. The problem was the fact that they were coming at him so quickly, he had no time to react, no time to counter attack. He'd never seen anybody fight like that before. With a little bit of strength training, that kid could seriously kill somebody.

As he was struggling to readjust his vision, the first thing that came into focus was a hand, extended before his face. His gaze traveled up the hand, towards the forearm, the upper arm, up the shoulder, and came to rest at the face that looked back at him with a warm smile.

"W…why are you doing this?" Jake asked.

"I think you could help us with our little problem with the undead," Cranky replied simply. "Are you alright?"

"I'll be damned the day I get the shit beaten outta me by someone half my size," Jake spat bitterly.

"Then you can count today being the first of your damned life," Cranky said, half jokingly.

"Hey!" Jake retorted. "He didn't … I'm fine …" But he realized how silly he must've sounded.

"Graagh!" The Shadow Technology hadn't released Kenny from its grasp yet, as he ripped himself violently from the man and woman's grasps and made his way over to Jake.

"I'll take care of this," Cranky said, walking up to Kenny nonchalantly. He suddenly spun around, and swung his fist and Kenny, connecting with the kid's temple, effectively knocking him to the ground with one strike.

"What the hell!" The man with the wife beater said, suddenly aiming his handgun at Cranky.

"It's alright," Cranky said, quick to defend himself. "Kenny needs it to snap out of his little …" He was at a loss of words to describe his Shadow Technology induced state. "Just trust me. He'll be alright." The man opened his mouth to say something, but stopped as he spotted movement on the ground.

"What the hell," Kenny said, rubbing his head as he sat up.

Ada bent down to pick him up off the floor. "Are you hurt?" she asked, brows wrinkled in concern.

"Yeah, I'll be okay," he said, pushing her hand away lightly. He looked up at Cranky in confusion. "You bastard, that hurt!"

"Sorry," Cranky said, shrugging. "It happened again …"

"Oh …" Only the two friends understood what had just happened, everyone else looking around at each other wondering what kind of meaning was being exchanged between them at the subliminal level. "Billy, you can lower the gun now. It's fine, Cranky's cool."

"Well maybe you guys wanna explain what the fuck just happened?" Jake asked, furious that everything could've been forgiven so easily.

"I've got an extra pack of shotgun shells," Cranky offered. "Take it or leave it. But you can have a damn good share of our weapons if you'll join us."

Jake thought about Cranky's offer. And it took longer than a second. If he stuck with them, his chances of survival were guaranteed judging by the amount of ammunition Kenny had in his backpack, and with Jake's own skill in hand-to-hand combat and firearms. And they'd benefit from him too. But then he thought about his own mission which he'd momentarily forgotten in the pursuit for more ammo – to assassinate William Birkin, whoever that mad scientist was.

"Thanks, but I'll take the shotgun shells instead." Cranky headed for where the pack of shells had been dropped onto the cracked, bloody road, from when the fight first ensued.

"Take it, and leave us the hell alone," Cranky said, single-handedly tossing the heavy shoulder pack over with an arm. Jake swiped it out of the air and nodded his head in acknowledgement.

"Looks like you folks can take care of yourselves well enough without me anyway," he said, before heading off into the distance.

"I don't understand that guy," Billy commented, watching Jake's massive form disappear into the darkness of the dead streets. "He's got some guts taking on this viral city by himself."

"Something tells me he's not gonna have a problem," Cranky replied turning around to face the trio of survivors.

"So you wanna tell us who this guy is?" Ada asked Kenny, motioning to his friend.

"I don't quite know what he's doing here," Kenny said, motioning towards his friend, "but this is Cranky. We've known each other since we were kids. Well … since I was a kid, anyway. He looked out for me on the streets of Osaka."

"I came here to pay you a surprise visit," Cranky said, "just wanted to see how my bro was doing." He ruffled Kenny's hair with his palm, who only scowled in return. "But I didn't figure it would be under these circumstances."

"Well it's nice to meet you, Mr. Cranky," Ada said, "but I'm afraid we have to get moving. I'm trying to get to the chemical plant nearby. My boyfriend, John works there and I need to know if he's alright. Are you going to come with us?"

"I'd love to …" Cranky began, but then he remembered Cindy. "But there's someone else I need to make sure is alright."

"What the hell?" Kenny asked. "You don't know anybody in this city besides me! Who else would you have to look out for?"

"See, I was at the bar today and I met …"

Kenny rolled his eyes. "Oh God, don't say anymore, I understand. Go off and find her. I'll be alright."

"Do me a favor and take care of him while I'm gone?" Cranky asked Billy, who only looked down at Kenny and smirked at the teen's reaction.

"He still thinks I'm six years old," he remarked. "Just go, Cranky, okay? We'll be fine. Just … make sure you and your friend escape this city."

"It's a deal."

"I'm not joking! I wanna see both of your assess outside the city or I'm gonna …" But Cranky was already far enough away to not have heard his friend. Either that or he'd gotten very good at blocking Kenny's rants.

"Come on," Ada said, putting her hand on the teen's shoulder. "Let's get out of here. I'm sure your friend will be able to take care of himself."

Cranky had already been long gone by the time the trio felt the ground tremble beneath their feet, and a giant worm from hell, complete with three razor sharp tusks at its mouth burst through the ground, throwing them off balance. Billy and Ada drew their weapons and began firing rapidly as the creature dove straight towards Kenny, its gaping mouth open as it moved in for the kill.


	8. Interlude: Forever Night

Late summers in Raccoon City were warm in the day, and at night. The difference of a few degrees didn't matter much. But in the days that led to the final destruction of Raccoon City, it seemed as if all forms of energy were being sucked from within the city limits; the lives of countless innocent people and animals, the electricity that ran the city leaving it bathed in a dark shadow, and now even the summer heat. Cranky shivered from a chill running the length of his spine. His black cotton shirt was no longer enough to keep the warmth in. After his run-in with Jake Cavanaugh the career criminal, Cranky had been pumped full of adrenaline even after the fight, the very same adrenaline that kept him warm. But now he was getting a little too comfortable in the mess that was Raccoon City. The zombies didn't surprise him anymore. He wasn't even afraid of them. The initial fear he felt upon first laying his eyes on a zombie was now replaced by sorrow, sympathy for every single soul that had been turned into the undead, every soul that once had a life, family and friends, an identity. And now they were nothing more than mere rotting shells of their former selves, stalking the streets like viral cannibals.

"You've gotta be outta your mind," Cranky said to himself, as he turned out from one of the side streets and onto the main road. He didn't know why he wanted to see Cindy again. Was she really worth risking his life over? Cranky came into the city to see Kenny. After finding out how dangerous this place was, he knew he had to get Kenny out of here. But now that his brother was in safe hands, he'd split up with them and went off to find the nice little waitress he couldn't have spent more than ten seconds talking to. But perhaps ten seconds was all he needed for his womanizing ways.

The main streets were an even bigger mess than they first appeared when he'd entered the city. Cars were thrown every which way, their metallic shells folding into each other to the point where they'd become nothing but giant hunks of twisted metal. The streets were littered with paper from office buildings, cars, stray newspapers and fliers. But what caught Cranky's attention was the pavement. There were four giant craters, each with a diameter as long as the width of the street. The smell of burning, infected flesh and thick, choking black smoke permeated the air, making it hard to breathe. About two or three blocks down the road, Cranky could see the orange light of fire. Something huge must've fallen from the sky to cause these craters. But that scenario seemed unlikely. The danger came from the zombies and the virus, not from strange missiles falling overhead. Whatever created these crates could've also come from underneath the ground.

"Hey!" someone shouted, catching Cranky's attention. He silently thanked whoever was listening that he'd finally found some another human. He was just starting to regret parting with Kenny and his friends. He spun around to get a better look at the speaker, coming face to face with a tall, pale skinned man with a crop of dark brown or black hair. Judging by the way he walked, he was an authority figure – if the blue uniform shirt didn't give that away already. His steps were wide, confident, and his arms swung by his sides rigidly, signifying strength.

"I'm glad I found you, officer," Cranky said, extending a hand.

"I could say the same," the officer replied as they shared a handshake. "My name's Aaron." He glanced down at his uniform. "I … mean, Officer Aaron …"

"Don't worry about the formalities," Cranky said, shrugging it off, "I think whatever this city's going through, the situation's come to involve more than whose duty it is to protect who."

"It's boiled down to basic human survival," Officer Aaron agreed, "but there are those of us who still feel it's our obligation to the citizens of Raccoon to protect them."

"Understandable," Cranky nodded. Changing the subject, he cocked his head over at the giant craters that had been dug into the ground. "Got any idea what happened here?"

"We'd set some detonators just beneath the surface of the road. We had a plan to lure those creatures down the main street and then barricading it off at the other end." He pointed down towards the opposite direction from where the fire burned, where Cranky spotted more of the craters for the first time. "But the creatures …"

"Zombies," Cranky corrected.

Officer Aaron smirked in approval. "The zombies broke through the barricade before we could get the detonators set off. We lost two valuable officers as a result." Officer Aaron hung his head in defeat. Cranky was about to put his hand on the Officer's shoulder, tell him that they weren't going to lose any more, but as quickly as that moment of shame had come, it disappeared into the air with the rising smoke. "A group of survivors ended up activating the detonator. Can you believe it? A ragtag group of survivors?"

"Must be kind of a blow to your ego that a bunch of ordinary citizens could pull off what you guys couldn't, huh?" Officer Aaron looked slightly hurt by Cranky's remark, who took it back quickly. "That was inappropriate. I'm … very sorry, I'm sure it must've been a terrible loss."

"The eight of them were determined to survive," Officer Aaron said, ignoring Cranky's comment, and his apology. "As cops, we know we are trained to survive tough situations. But after a majority of the city's population had contracted the virus, we started to doubt our own chances of survival. But these survivors, eight of them, I could see determination in their eyes. They did whatever they could to live through this nightmare, backing each other up in the heat of battle against those zombies. And their weapons weren't even Grade A. Manufactured by one of the group, a guy by the name of David. Looked like an auto mechanic, or a plumber, something like that. And the girl that was with them seemed to be some kind of herbal expert, mixing up these herb cocktails that worked wonders on the others. She was from J's Bar."

Cranky nearly choked on his tongue. "H…how would you know?"

Officer Aaron looked at him with an expression of bewilderment. "All the cops go to J's Bar for a good time! We know what a J's Bar uniformed waitress looks like!" he exclaimed, the subliminal question posed to Cranky being, "Where the hell have you been?"

"Sorry, I'm not from around here."

"Oh, that makes a difference then," Aaron said, scratching the back of his head. "What a great time to come."

"Yeah tell me about it. But hey, Officer, were you able to catch the waitress' name?"

"Oh I already know her. That was Cindy. But I have no idea where she learned to make herbs like that."

"Where did they go!" Cranky asked, seizing Officer Aaron by the shoulders, his green eyes wide with hope. The cop looked uncomfortable having Cranky in his face. "Sorry," the latter said, "It's just that I've been looking for Cindy, trying to make sure she's alright." He released the Officer from his grip.

"Don't worry about it. From the looks of how she handled herself tonight, something tells me their going to make it out of the city – that is, if the damn government hasn't quarantined us already. As for where they went, I have no idea. But I remember Kevin saying something about heading towards the industrial district before they took off. Kevin's one of our own who happened to be with the group of survivors so we entrusted them to him. Don't worry, even in the unlikely situation that Cindy can't protect herself in, she's in good hands."

"That's always good to hear." Despite his words, Cranky wasn't satisfied. It was at that moment when he knew it was more than just a concern for Cindy's safety. He hadn't even known her long enough to be concerned to the point where he'd put his own life on the line for hers. The more he thought about it, the more Cranky became disgusted with himself. "I want to fuck her." Time stopped for a moment. He was almost certain that he'd just said the words. But when Aaron didn't respond, he breathed a sigh of relief. It must've just been his mind speaking.

"We've gotta get you to a hospital," Officer Aaron said. "You arm and shoulders are bleeding." Cranky hadn't even noticed his own wounds received from the battle with Jake. He didn't wan tto go along, but realized that it would be better if he did. Officer Aaron, who seemed to know Cindy pretty well, said that he was sure she'd be alright. And he would know more than Cranky did. It made sense to him not to endanger himself any further than necessary.

XXXXX

"We could put up here for the night. They've got enough beds for us all."

From behind a thin veil of blonde hair, a sparkling blue eye stared in disapproval at Dr. George Hamilton, standing in front of the other survivors, waving his arms around at every ridiculous suggestion that spilled forth from his mouth. Alyssa Ashcroft wanted to tell him to shut up. His bad ideas were a waste of time to listen to and quite frankly, she didn't have the time to waste. The sooner they could get out of the city, the better. But Alyssa had a conscience too – one that she'd spent many years trying to fight. Such menial things got in the way of getting the real story. And as a journalist, the real story was what she was always after. And people won't talk unless they are pushed to. She had an impressive arsenal of insults and considerable skill when it came to putting her thoughts into words, whether down on paper or in a verbal context. But right now, her conscience was winning. Dr. Hamilton may have been socially inept and his ideas just plain stupid, but the guy seemed to have a good heart. From the few hours they'd spent together since the viral outbreak reached its peak last night, Alyssa had decided was George was too good natured to be the victim of her yelling.

"That makes sense," a short statured, oriental girl said. She unstrapped a black knapsack from her shoulders and placed it on one of the hospital beds before sitting in it, as if to emphasize Dr. Hamilton's point. "We can't continue running like this forever. We have to rest and continue our escape tomorrow."

"And we can also be sitting ducks for his zombified co-workers looking for their next hot meal," Alyssa said, jabbing her finger in George's general direction. She couldn't hold it in any longer. "We should've just continued running. If the situation gets any worse, we might not even be able to escape through the lobby. We might have to jump out this fucking third story window!"

"The hospital windows are secure," George assured, "you'll never break through."

"So you led us into a death trap!" Alyssa screeched.

"Now, hold on a minute," a deep voice said, one with a bass so powerful that it commanded immediate respect. "The Doc's right. We need our rest if we want to have the energy to escape this place. The doors to the hospital are barricaded and we can even put an extra obstacle in front of the door that leads to this room for extra safety. It's not like we're short on ammunition, right?"

"Mark," Alyssa said, toning her voice down a little bit as she approached the big man. "I know you're an experienced soldier and I don't doubt your advice. But we're not fighting soldiers this time. We're up against hordes of rotting cannibal corpses at don't feel pain! Every person that dies becomes one of them, or something worse. How much death have we seen since our ordeal started? And don't you think the same deaths are occurring all over the city? By the time tomorrow comes around, there will be even more to contend with."

"Alright, I'm sick of this arguing." Sitting in an isolated corner of the room, Officer Kevin Ryman had been sitting and watching the drama unfold before his eyes. But Alyssa was a hothead and with her involved in any debate, the intensity level didn't need much time to escalate to unbearable heights. "You guys are both right. We need our rest, but we don't have the time for a good eight our sleep. So why don't we just nap instead?"

George, Mark, and Alyssa stared at the young officer for his casual deliverance. He looked back at them and shrugged. "Did I say something wrong?"

"It just … makes so much sense," Alyssa said, putting a hand to her temple. "Fine, we'll nap for a bit but I want to be out of here by nine tonight."

"That gives us three hours," George said, glancing at his watch. "It won't be enough for a full night's rest, but I'll settle for what we can get."

"Yoko," Alyssa called out, "think we can put all our ammunition in that handy knapsack of yours?"

"Better keep yours," the oriental girl suggested. "If any of those zombies break attack us, you'll all be left defenseless."

"Good point," Cindy added, the only surviving employee of J's Bar, the place where this whole nightmare started for the eight survivors. Alyssa couldn't help it, but she liked the girl. Cindy came across as weak and submissive initially, but during their time spent running around the city trying to survive hour after hour, Cindy had managed to pull herself together and face the zombie hordes with surprising courage. With a herb kit she'd dug out of her locker back at the bar, she was able to store the healing herbs that grew naturally in the Raccoon City region. Another element of surprise that Cindy delivered was her expertise at mixing the healing herb cocktails, even in tense situations, giving Alyssa the impression that she'd done it before. It was amazing. Her level of skill, Alyssa could've sworn, was only possessed by Raccoon City's best, like the doctors and the S.T.A.R.S.

"Keep that thing close," Kevin said, nodding his head at Cindy's herb case.

"Here," Cindy said, opening the case up, extracting the dried herb powder wrapped in a piece of paper. "I'll give each of you one of these to hold on to when you need to use them."

"Use them sparingly," Mark Wilkins, the security guard reminded them. "Those things may grow in the area, but they're usually more abundant in the forests, not in the middle of the city."

"If we ever run out," George offered, "I can make some medicinal pills from the blue ones. They'll lose some of their potency from the conversion, but I guess it's better than nothing."

"Good, so you guys can work together to produce medicines," Kevin said. "Mark and I will be the sharpshooters. Only shoot when it's inevitable, right buddy? We can't risk wasting what little bullets we've got."

"That's the plan," Mark replied.

"Ugh, men," Alyssa scoffed out loud. "Give me a gun." She meant for it to be more of a request, but it came out sounding like an order instead.

"Alyssa, you're the one that gets us through locked doors, remember?" Mark said.

"I can fuckin' help you shoot when I'm NOT getting us through doors, you know," she snapped.

"Okay, okay!" Kevin said, handing an extra handgun over to her gently, as if any sudden movement would cause the hard-edged journalist to rip his head off.

"David," Mark called out to the plumber, David King, who sat quietly on a bed, watching the action unfold, but not interacting. The man was quiet, only speaking if it was unavoidable. Though he struck Mark as being socially challenged, he was with no question a powerful asset to the group. His creative ability to conceptualize and make weapons out of almost any household item they came across was responsible for the fact that they still had ammunition to burn. "See anything you can make weapons out of to arm the rest of us?"

"I've only got a few knives," the plumber admitted with a deep, rough voice. "Just give me a … a stick or something. That way we could stab at those infected freaks without having to go near them ourselves."

"I've got one in my bag," Yoko offered.

"That's fine," Mark insisted. "You need something to protect yourself with."

"You guys get to bed," David said, "you'll need your rest. I'll stay up and keep watch."

"But what about you?" Cindy asked, her voice laced with concern, typical of her to put someone else's needs ahead of her own.

"I'll be fine," he replied, staring blankly out the third floor window, as the sun started to dip down below the horizon, spreading its last orange rays of light before it vanished for good, and the creatures of the night took over.


	9. Chapter 7: At the Same Time

It had only been a few minutes since the sun had gone down and silence had fallen over the dead city. Everything including the wind had stopped it seemed, terrified by the creatures that would soon make their appearances. Despite their rotting states, the zombies seemed to be aware of the sun's intense rays on their bodies. Driven by whatever remained of their humanity or their viral instinct – it made no difference – they would seek shelter from the late summer sun, and come out again at night in search for prey. And the population of said prey was slowly dwindling.

The night was still. Not a branch shook. The only movement was the crackling of fires that had sprung up in various parts of the city, none of the Raccoon Fire Department left to put them out. Water towers, a common feature of a mid-Western town such as this, had all nearly been toppled or drained. Only the empty shells of buildings stood tall now, completely gutted, ransacked, and filled with the rotting corpses of people too decomposed, too devoured to live out their afterlives as zombies.

The few souls left in Raccoon City waited for the nightmare to begin again. With the military driven quarantine that the city had been put under, they could only survive day at a time and wonder when their end would come. Nobody was coming in to help them. Nobody was getting out.

XXXXX

Carlos Oliveira looked at the unconscious, sultry form of Jill Valentine lying before him at a church altar, like some kind of a female sacrifice. Candles were lined on either side of her, providing a warm, healthy glow to her skin and the surrounding area. It was an illusion. She was actually pale, having been struck in the arm by some viral tentacle, belonging to the strangest creature he'd ever seen. It looked as if its skin had melted off its body, having no lips to cover its skeletal grin. It had been dressed in a large trench coat that could've easily provided a blanket for Jill and Carlos combined.

Jill had nicknamed the creature "Nemesis" but whether or not that was its actual name that she was referring to it as, he had no idea. All he understood at the present moment was finding a cure for his friend, and perhaps his only chance at escaping the city alive. It was officially night for Raccoon City, when the hunt for the remaining human survivors would begin again. But Carlos was not going to sit down in this church and wait for him and Jill to be found and eaten. He was going to find a cure for whatever it was she had inside of her, whatever that creature, the Nemesis had injected her with.

A sudden, loud bang cause Carlos to jerk his head skyward. There was no mistaking the sound of thunder. It was going to rain very soon, as if God himself wanted to wash away the intoxicating stench of death from Raccoon. But not even the Almighty could save the city from its fate. Carlos didn't know what he was thinking when he cocked his handgun, ready to fight off any zombie infiltration that the clock tower might experience. When he was going to get the anti-virus for Jill, he didn't know. The hospital was just behind the building, not more than a block's worth of a walk.

This time it was the crashing sound of breaking glass that caught his attention, just outside the mini chapel built into the church where he and Jill had taken shelter. The zombies were finally in. And after a day of mental and physical preparation and two days struggling to suppress his hunger and thirst, Carlos was finally ready for them.

XXXXX

"I'm on my way." Claire Redfield shut off her walkie-talkie and stared blankly ahead, at the gaping hole in the fence. It was far too small for her to fit through but not for a child as small as Sherry. Claire's heart ached for the twelve year old girl, lost and all alone in this maze of a city, with strange creatures crawling around at every corner.

Sherry had explained to Claire in frightening detail the skinless creatures with dagger-like claws and flexible tongues. Normally, she would've passed off such renditions as figments of the child's imagination, had she not actually seen the monsters for herself. But when Sherry told Claire of a giant zombie with a large eye growing out of its arm, she was downright terrified. Sherry had come across as an honest little girl, and based on the descriptions of the monster she related, there was no way she could've been lying about this monster.

"Daddy must've been attacked by the monster!" Sherry had said before scurrying off through the hole in the fence. "I have to help him." But what was she planning to do? Kick the monster in the shins? Claire had no idea, but she hoped and prayed that perhaps Sherry was small enough for such a monster to not take notice, though her instincts told her that the little girl had next to no chance.

Claire wanted to cry. Sherry had returned to her and it had barely been five minutes since the little girl had run off. But there was no way Sherry could've reached the hole again, based on the three meter drop that she'd fallen. But Sherry, in an amazing display of bravery told Claire that she'd find another way around and catch up with her.

"And here I'm the one fighting back tears," Claire told herself mentally. "Now who's being the twelve year old?"

Claire wasn't any good at fighting her emotions, she knew as much. That's because being a tomboy her whole life, having an older brother watching over her since they were kids, she never had much to fear or to cry about. And here she was pouring her concern out over a child she'd barely known for more than a few hours.

She tried to move from where she stood, where she last saw Sherry standing before her, hoping that perhaps the little girl would come back and she'd find a way to pull her back through the hole. But after a few agitated moments of waiting, Claire decided Sherry probably wasn't going to come back. The way she said she'd find another way – there was determination in her voice. Sure, it was a child's voice, but children were usually the most honest, most determined people she'd ever known, their will completely untouched by the harsh realities of life.

Besides, Leon had just summoned her via the walkie-talkie, ordering her to meet him in the sewers. That meant she had to leave the warm, bright police precinct. Alone in the warm, bright precinct, or together with Leon in the cold, damp sewers? Claire realized she longed for human companionship now more than anything in this dying place. She didn't feel good leaving Sherry to fend for herself, but there was no choice.

"Please be safe, girl," Claire mumbled under her breath as she turned around and headed for the steel ladder that would eventually lead back up to the main floor of the police station, and the sewers where God knew what waited for her.

XXXXX

"Oh, please do not be alarmed," a mustached doctor said, raising his hands in the air. The eight survivors had clearly been caught off guard, with the good doctor George Hamilton keeping the waitress Cindy, and Yoko backed up against the wall with his back protectively to them. The RPD's own Kevin Ryman formed a protective ring around the three of them with the assistance of David King the plumber, Mark Wilkins a security guard, Alyssa Ashcroft of the Raccoon Times, and Jim Chapman of Raccoon's transportation systems. The five each had a gun aimed at the intruding doctor who they mistakenly assumed was a zombie at first glance.

"What the hell," Alyssa breathed under her breath, a sigh of relief.

"I'm a doctor in this hospital," the man continued, though George needed no reintroduction to his co-worker. "I must say that this hospital is not an idea place to take shelter, despite how safe it may look or sound. I myself have decided to get out of here as soon as possible." Without saying another word, he left the room, as if leave the survivors to contemplate on his words.

Alyssa turned to George. "A friend of yours?" she asked.

George nodded. "Dr. Hursch is … ah … very blunt," he explained. "He's not the kind to listen to other people, though he expects them to listen to him."

"Charming fellow," Kevin added sarcastically. "So, crew. Let's book it outta here."

"Man, I'm not so sure that's a good idea," Jim piped up. He'd been quiet the whole night until now. "Just think about what's crawling around out there."

"And then think about what's crawling around in here," Alyssa added. "I'd take my chances with those rotting deformities out on the streets than in a confined building like this."

"Well maybe I wanna …" But Jim couldn't finish his sentence, as he was interrupted by a resounding crash somewhere close by on the same floor. It was as if someone had bashed a metal plate onto the hard ceramic floor. "What in the world …?"

"You think the good old Dr. Hursch could make a sound like that?" Alyssa asked George half jokingly, as George shook his head gravely.

"There's something here with us," he whispered hoarsely.

"Alright then, crew," Kevin said, withdrawing his handgun, as he and Mark moved into positions, flanking the group with Alyssa leading the way. "Time to get moving." As they left the room not one of the eight survivors could deny hearing something ever so faint, but completely noticeable, a sound like a pair of wet, puckered lips sucking on something cold and hard …

XXXXX

Leon swallowed the growing lump in his throat, devoid of all moisture now from the air of intensity around him. He stood in front of a large, heavy duty metal door - so heavy that instead of a simple knob, there was what resembled a valve handle with which to open it. It looked as if it were meant for air pressure stability, but whether for the room in which he currently stood or whatever lay beyond it, he didn't know. All he understood was that it led deeper into the sewers.

Leon wiped the sweat from his brown with one hand, the other holding on so tightly to his handgun that he had to make a mental effort not to squeeze too hard and activate the trigger, and refrain from literally shooting himself in the foot. The police station was creepy indeed, the large space completely void of all life, his footsteps echoing thunderously off the stone walls and floor with no other sound to drown it out. But he felt safe in this large, warm, brick building - nevermind the fact that zombies had stormed the precinct just hours ago and ate everyone alive. It was sure as hell more appealing than trudging through sewer water.

But Leon also realized that if he wanted out of this city, he'd have to go this way. And Ada ... that beautiful, mysterious Asian woman in the red cocktail dress ... he worried about her. She was just an innocent civilian caught up in the mess that was Raccoon City. The woman seemed confident that she could take care of herself, but she was so fragile looking, even with her handgun by her side. She'd been pretty stubborn too, running off and away from Leon's protection. Where she got this confidence, he didn't know. Actually, he didn't even know her that well. But his duty to protect her as a police officer was absolute. There was no questioning that, especially in a scenario like the one they were in.

Ada said she was heading towards the sewers - and that made sense. If they were going to escape this city of death, the sewers were a better route that roaming the upper streets which were no doubt crawling with the undead by now. In a desparate attempt to catch up with her, Leon brashly headed for the sewer entrance through a manhole built into the precinct floor in the dog kennels. Not wanting to leave Claire behind, he contacted her via the walkie talkie and practically ordered the poor, scared teenager to follow.

Leon sighed. He understood that Claire must've been scared. He only had two years on her, and wasn't much more experienced in life himself. And even before entering the sewers, was already shaking in his combat boots.

"Just suck it up and move on, Kennedy," he told himself as he grabbed the valve handle with both hands and began to turn it, the high pitched squeal of metal on metal filling the air. When the handle stopped turning with a metallic grunt, he pushed against the door, grunting with effort as the stench of human waste and the sound of rushing water assaulted his senses. Now he understood what the door was trying to keep out.

Upon his entrance, the ceiling began to crack, showering bits of dust and rock down into the water below the steel platform that the door led to. Something fell through ...


	10. Chapter 8: Making Progress

It had been a few hours since Cranky had seen a decent human being – decent being one who wasn't trying to eat him. He opened his heavy eyelids, and the first thing that his eyes registered was the ceiling. He rubbed the sandy grits of sleep from his lashes and swallowed a thick wad of spit. Smacking his lips, Cranky realized he had been asleep. He turned his head to find it resting comfortably on a pillow, and then noticed the bars at the sides of the bed, making sure he wouldn't roll off. Judging from the that feature, and the fact that a curtain partially separated him from the rest of the room, he was in the Raccoon City hospital, where Officer Aaron had recommended he go for his wounds.

Cranky sat up, scratching at his red, matted hair, and tried to remember how he got there in the first place. Officer Aaron had made the call for an ambulance and it had only been a few minutes before one arrived just for him. Given the chaos that the city was currently in, Cranky was happy to know that the police, in cooperation with the hospital had secured a route to get civilians to safety. Upon arriving at the hospital, he was greeted by a Dr. Hursch, one of the last surviving doctors who worked there.

He remembered Hursch giving him some shots and bandaging him up quite well. Cranky looked down at his shoulder, realizing for the first time since waking up that he was half naked. The bandage was wrapped around his shoulder and across his broad chest. He searched around the bed for his black T-shirt, realizing how cold he felt.

Cranky found the black shirt sitting in a crumpled pile on the floor next to the bed. He debated for a second whether it would be a smart idea putting it on, seeing as how the entire city was infected with _something_, and he wasn't entirely sure how the infection spread. He looked at his shoulder where the open wound sat nice and raw, now tightly bandaged up. He figured of all the places in the city, the hospital would still be sterile at least, especially if Hursch was brave enough to wrap him up in its bandages. He doubted the good doctor would be stupid enough to wrap an infected bandage around an open wound, risking having Cranky turn into a zombie. As if they needed another one.

A large crash caught Cranky's attention. It sounded like something metallic crashing into the tile flooring of the hospital, just outside the room door. And judging from the volume of the noise, it must've been a really heavy metallic object that had crashed. The next sound that Cranky registered sent chills up his spine. It sounded like wet lips kissing the floor – extremely wet, slimy lips. They were strong, indicating heavy mass, and reoccurred at the rate of … footsteps?

"Shit," Cranky cursed to himself. Something was in here, and his gut was telling him it wasn't human. He hoped to hell it was a zombie – at least he faced zombies before. But it was this uncertainty that was getting him really nervous. Glancing across the room, sitting a few feet against the wall was the shotgun that he'd been carrying this whole time. The mere sight of the weapon brought him great relief, but whatever the creature was, it was a little too close to the room door. If it chose to bust its way in … Deciding against reaching for the weapon – it would have taken too much time and he would've probably made some noise in the process – Cranky got up silently from the bed, biting his lip from crying out in pain as his wounds screamed bloody murder. He lowered his body as silently as he could to the cold floor and swiped his shirt as he crawled under the bed.

He lay there on his belly with the shirt protecting his bare torso from the chilly floor. Cranky was still in pain from the wounds, making it hard for him to breathe, forcing his breath to come out in short gasps. He forced himself to breathe as regularly as he could, so he wouldn't be as audible. From where he lay, Cranky could see the shotgun sitting there, leaning against the wall, waiting to be used.

The door to Cranky's room opened suddenly, followed by a rush of cold air – and a pair of inhuman legs stepped into full view. It looked as if they acted like legs or some kind of support device for the creature – but they weren't made of flesh and bone. No, it looked as if they were made of thousands upon thousands of little slugs or … leeches! Cranky put a hand over his mouth and tried not to gag at the sight. The sounds of their wet, slimy movements didn't help his stomach either. He could feel his hot breath escaping from his nose and mouth against his fingers. Was the creature sensitive to heat? And if so, how sensitive was it? Could it sense fear? Were the little leeches covering its legs able to see him as he crouched under the bed?

As the questions ran through Cranky's mind, there was another metallic clash, only this one was closer. From his peripheral vision, he could see the cause of the noise. The covering of the room's vent had crashed to the floor. The twisted piece of metal lay close to the bed, just inches from Cranky's reach. He kept his eyes on the legs of the creature, with skin that looked like it could eat him, and saw them lift off the ground, and out of his vision. Within a few seconds, the slimy, wet movements of the leeches could no longer be heard. Just to be safe, Cranky waited under the bed for another few moments until he was certain the creature was gone. Those few moments felt like an eternity, and the silent seconds that followed tortured him. He wanted to get out and grab the shotgun, but he was too afraid. For all he knew, the thing could've been suctioned to the ceiling, waiting for him to come out of hiding.

Getting tired of just lying there against the cold floor, he crawled cautiously from under the bed, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. There was nothing there, just white, sterile ceiling. Cranky was able to breathe a sigh of relief before continuing his hunt for Cindy. He put on his T-shirt as he headed towards the shotgun, picking it up and holding the firearm close to his side. He wasn't going to get caught without a weapon anymore. At least if he ever ran out of ammunition, he could always use the gun itself as a melee weapon.

XXXXX

The hospital's corridors were eerily dark and quiet. The passage to his left was cut of by a barred shutter. Cranky placed the shotgun on the floor and took a firm grasp of the bars, lifting upward with all his might. Either the shutter was bolted down or it was just too heavy for him to lift. Whatever the case, he wasn't going to pass through here. Perhaps he could crawl through the vents? But he changed his mind quickly, considering that leech monster was using the ventilation system as a way of getting around the hospital, probably to get past the shutters too. So Cranky headed right and rounded a corner, seeing a beautiful sight.

There was a flight of stairs leading down! The stairs leading to the higher levels were shuttered off as well, but it wasn't like he was going to head for the rooftop. But then again, was leaving through the lobby such a smart idea? It was a tough choice, taking his chances in the hospital with the leech monster, or on the streets with hoards of zombies.

Deciding to try some other options before having to resort to that method of exit, Cranky headed towards the elevator on the opposite end of the hall, passing a door on his left titled "Nurse Center", the letters engraved into a metal plate screwed to the wooden door. The tapped the call button for the elevator but it didn't even light up. Cranky tapped it again, pushing it harder into the wall, but no results were yielded. The power must've been off. That could explain the darkness of the hospital too, come to think of it.

Just as he turned around to check out the nurse center, he heard the whir of power being restored, realizing the generator must've kicked in. Some of the lights in the hall turned on but about half of them remained off, indicating burnt out bulbs. At least he wouldn't have to check out the nurse center in darkness. Holstering the shotgun, he turned the knob of the door and pushed it open, stepping into the room.

A zombie greeted him. He could smell the thing before seeing it. It was a nurse, oddly enough. Half of her face had been peeled off. A skeletal grin smiled at him from one half of her face, while the other licked hungrily at the air with a blistered tongue as she lay her undead vision on him. Her uniform was tattered in several places, stained with a creative variety of bodily fluids. A lazy moan escaped her mouth as she lunged for Cranky.

Frowning in disgust, he raised his shotgun and aimed it at her head. She must've been some kind of super zombie. She dodged the barrel of the gun and continued on her merry was towards Cranky, pushing her disgusting, rotting body against his as she tried to take a bite from his wounded shoulder. He kept her at bay with the gun against her throat, making sure those teeth wouldn't get anywhere near him. He wrestled with the zombie nurse for a few moments, he quickly grew tired of the game and pushed her away with his foot. He pumped the shotgun and fire, shattering the nurse's skull with a single round, sending shards of bone and wet brain matter all over the opposite wall.

"Did you hear that?" someone said, from out in the hallway, sounding nervous and terrified. Cranky's heart leapt with joy as he heard the voices of other human beings. He didn't realize that despite only a few hours by himself in the hospital room – with most of those hours spent sleeping – he was missing the company of other people already. Considering the creatures lurking about in here, he found it hard to blame himself.

"That sounded like a gunshot," a deep, booming voice said.

"Do you think we should check it out?"

Cranky opened the door to the nurse center to see a hefty man dressed in a security guard uniform and a beautiful restaurant waitress standing beside him. It was her – it was Cindy. Cranky couldn't help but let a smile creep across his face. He didn't know if it was from laying eyes upon her or the fact that there were other people there, probably a mixture of both. Then he noticed their guns pointed at him.

"It's okay," he said, raising his hands, "I'm human – still." She might have been a sweet, harmless looking petite waitress but in the course of the last few days, she'd certainly learned how to use a gun. No wonder she was still alive.

"Thank goodness," the man said, as the two of them lowered their firearms.

"Another survivor," Cindy said, putting a hand to her mouth in awe.

"Did you guys see that monster?" Cranky asked, referring to the leech creature that terrorized him minutes earlier.

Cindy and the man exchanged worried glances. "So we're not the only ones being stalked," the man commented. "I'm not sure if that's good or bad."

"You're welcome to join us," Cindy offered. "We could use a little more help getting out of here."

"Well they say three's a crowd," Cranky said, offering a small joke to lighten the atmosphere.

"Then try three squared," the man replied. "That makes nine of us, if you're willing to join."

Cranky shrugged, "the more, the merrier I suppose."

"Nice to meet you," the man said, extending a hand, "Mark Wilkins."

Cindy smiled that sweet smile of hers Cranky remembered back at the bar, "Cindy Lennox."

"We've met," Cranky replied, taking her hand into his. He planted a kiss on the back of her palm. "Craig Crankurt, at your service."

"You're quite the charmer, aren't you?" she giggled. "You're that tourist who just came into town, right?"

"Yeah."

"Is your friend okay?" she asked.

"My friend?" Who was she talking about? Oh that's right, Cranky came into town to see his little brother, Kenny. "Yeah, he's doing okay. I left him with some people who are taking good care of him."

"So there are others alive," Mark said, his eyes widening with surprise and hope.

"Yeah, but I doubt there's anything we can do for them at this point. We have to focus on getting ourselves out of here first. Where are the others you speak of?"

"Kevin, Alyssa and Yoko are checking out the B2 level of the hospital right now," Mark explained. "George, Jim and David have gone to the rooftop to check if we can escape by roof hopping."

"I guess the desperate will do what they can to survive," Cranky said, scratching his head.

"Oh believe me, we've done it already," Mark replied, sharing some kind of inside joke with his companion. "Cindy and I were looking around on the B1 level, but we've come across a locked door – there was a notice saying something about a keycard that we'd need in order to gain access."

"We're searching for the card right now, checking as much of the hospital as we can get to," Cindy finished. "And then we ran into you."

"Why would you want to gain access to some strange room?" Cranky asked. "Isn't the priority right now to find and secure an escape route? The sewers should be safer than wandering the streets."

"We also have to restock on ammunition," Mark said. "Thanks to Yoko and her handy knapsack, we're able to store most of our stock in there. But I don't want to take any chances. If we can find more, we'll take it."

"That's a pretty handy looking shotgun you've got there," Cindy said, eyeing his firearm curiously. "Do you have any ammunition for that thing?"

"I'm running pretty low, myself," Cranky replied, holding the gun up. "I've been trying to conserve ammunition by using this baby as a bat."

"Come on," Mark said, leading the way down the stairs at the opposite end of the corridor from the nurse center. "We need to find that keycard. Have you been down this way yet?"

"No."

"Good, then let's get this place checked out."

**XXXXX**

"I can't believe you're making me do this," Alyssa said nervously, her arms rigid by her side. She looked fearfully at her companions through a wide window, standing at some kind of computer panel concentrating hard at whatever it displayed.

"I can't figure out how this thing works," Kevin said, brushing his brown bangs out of his eyes. He rubbed his stubbly chin with a gloved hand as he tried figuring out what the buttons did.

"I'm not sure it's a good idea messing around with this thing when we don't know what it does," Yoko said, hunched over the panel with her weight on her palms. "After all, it says we're in a temperature room … for all you know, you could end up cooking us alive in here."

"Hmm …" Kevin ignored Yoko's warnings and moved a lever up. The room suddenly filled with the hum of unseen machinery at work. Kevin and Yoko exchanged worried glances then looked around the room in confusion. They didn't feel any different, or see anything strange. What had the machine done?

"Oh my goodness, Alyssa!" Yoko cried, pointing at the journalist through the window. The room Alyssa was standing in was separated from the control panel by a wall and an automatic sliding door. Whatever temperature change Kevin had initiated, it had taken effect in the room in which she was standing in right now. Yoko began fanning herself rapidly. She looked at them with a terrified expression, slicing her hand across her throat to tell Kevin to cut it out, whatever he had done.

"Holy shit!" Kevin cried, and he began to panic, trembling hands flying all over the control panel. "Hold on, girl, I'm gonna shut this damn thing off!"

But the police officer was taking far too long to figure things out than Yoko liked. She took control of the situation, squeezing her way in to where he stood, shoving Kevin aside with her hip. She grasped the level tightly and pulled it downwards. Another mechanical hum sounded as steam began filtering from the vents from the wall. From inside the room, Alyssa seemed to calm down a little and was now running for the sliding door. It opened with a whirr and she stepped out, breathing heavily. Her face was flushed red and her face was coated with a thin layer of sweat.

Kevin ran to her side. "Are you okay, Alyssa? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to …"

She slapped him hard on the shoulder. "We were supposed to trap the leech creature in there! It's bad enough you used me as bait, but you could've killed me in there! Next time, stick to sharp-shooting! I'll handle the brainwork!"

"Wait, hold on a minute," Yoko said, holding up a hand. "We could use that room as a weapon …"

"That's it!" Alyssa cried with joy. "Instead of trapping the leech creature in there, we could cook it, like you almost did to me!"

"Yes," Yoko agreed, "but how are we going to get the thing in there? I doubt you want to be used as bait again."

"Well we could always use the bozo," Alyssa said, elbowing Kevin in the ribs.

"Hey, it was an accident!" he said, raising his hands in defense. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"There was a cabinet in the last room," Yoko remembered, "I saw it on our way in here. I think it stores donor blood."

"And how would you know that?"

"It said so on the cabinet label," she replied simply. "Now if the leech creature is anything like normal leeches, we could lure it in there with the blood."

"First," Kevin said, extracting his custom handgun from its holster, "lets make sure that cabinet's got some blood left. If it's true that the leech monster likes blood, it might have gotten to the supply already."

"Not if it's refrigerated," Alyssa suggested. "I've covered stories on the city's blood supply shortage because of the lazy-ass federal government. And I know for a fact that the blood has to be refrigerated for it to be reusable. Unless their sense of smell has increased a hundred-fold, there's no way the leeches could have detected it."

"Only one way to find out… Let's go."

**XXXXX**

Cranky frowned with disgust as he entered the doctor's office on the first floor of the hospital. This room reeked of decay, indicating corpses, or even worse, zombies nearby. The door led to a large room, most of it blocked from this angle by the side of a large partition, forcing whoever entered to walk around it to gain access to the rest of the room. The wall was to the right and the passageway was three to four feet wide at the most. Windows were built into the walls, covered by simple white curtains. Despite the smell, everything in the room appeared to be in order.

"The coast looks clear," he said, making sure to keep the shotgun pointed protectively in front of him. Cindy was the next to step into the room, looking around her nervously for any danger. Mark followed her, his eyes and handgun trained on anything that could approach them from behind.

"Oh," Cindy groaned, pinching her nose, "get a load of that smell!"

"We may be running low on herbs," Mark said, closing the door behind him. "Check around to see if they've got any lying around here."

"Some ammo would be nice, too," Cranky noted.

Cindy headed right for the cabinets across the room from where they stood, decorated on the tops by potted plants. Cranky stood right where he was, keeping watch for any of the undead that might want a piece of them. Mark turned around the partition to the left and checked out a doctor's working station and reeled back in horror. The body of a dead nurse lay at the table, probably recently dead as her body hadn't completely rot away. Her dried, crinkly hair was tied into a bun at the back of her head. Her skin was gray and her full lips dark blue, set in an open mouth with eyes wide open. This was the source of the odor of death in the room.

"What's the matter!" Cranky asked, his voice straining with tension as he poked his head around the partition.

"It's nothing," Mark replied, waving him off with one hand, the other clutching his chest to calm his rattled nerves. "I'm getting too old for this, I tell you."

"Anything else worth noting?" Cindy asked, approaching the middle-aged security guard. "I've found some blue herbs on the counter there – probably for decoration. It's kind of funny, actually, using medicinal herbs as decoration, especially in a place like this. How fitting." Cranky and Mark stared at her for a moment with cocked eyebrows, not following her twisted sense of humor. "Oh, nevermind! Just grab that keycard lying on the table … a keycard!"

"That's right," Mark replied. He reached for it, careful to not touch the corpse that lay spread out in front of him. He held his breath as he reached over, not wanting to take in any of the pungent odor. Who knew if the virus could be spread through the air? As he had the card in his grasp, the body unexpectedly came to life, jolting the three survivors from the momentary calm. It seized Mark by the forearm and bit down on it, but the leather of his security jacket was strong enough to hold off the zombie's strength. But it would only be a matter of moments before the creature's teeth broke through the material and into his skin, depositing the virus into his body.

"Kill it, kill it!" Mark screamed, struggling to pull himself free from the undead's surprisingly strong grasp.

Cindy fell back in fear and surprise, the shock disenabling her to do anything to help Mark in his perilous situation. Cranky was quicker, raising the shotgun in an instant with a single arm. He pulled the trigger and sprayed the walls with the zombie's cranial matter and crimson blood. What little that remained of its head fell back to the desk as its whole body convulsed with the movements of dying nerves, and finally went limp. Mark removed with hand from the zombie's mouth – or the lower jaw at least. The upper portion had shattered with the power of the gun blast.

"It didn't break the skin, did it?" Cindy asked with wide, worried eyes.

Mark shook his head. "No," he replied, sighing in relief. "But it would have in a few more seconds. If it wasn't for this jacket …"

"Let's forget about it," Cranky suggested. "We're lucky, but we have no time to count our stars if we want to make it out of here alive. What's that keycard say?"

"Right." Mark, in his sudden surprise attack, had momentarily forgotten about the new find. He picked it up from the floor, where only now he realized he'd dropped it in the brief scuttle, and eyed it carefully. "It says B1 on it. I think this might be just what we're looking for."

Cindy wiped her sweaty forehead with an arm and sighed. "Thank goodness," she said. "What are the chances it'd be left out here in the open? Imagine if the card had been on one of these walking zombies …"

"No star counting," Cranky reminded softly, as he headed back for the door from which they entered, shouldering the shotgun as he went. "Let's get down to the basement and open that door you were talking about …"


End file.
